Flight Friday: In Europe, Widebodies Recover, Narrowbodies Soar

With Aviation Week Events MRO Europe coming up in Barcelona, Spain, Flight Friday looks at how Europe is faring compared to 2019.

Immediately after the onset of the pandemic, widebodies and regional turboprops didn’t drop as low in equivalent 2019 utilization compared to narrowbodies and regional jets. The regional turboprop market, which is generally but not exclusively operated on domestic flights, started its recovery in the summer of 2020. By the end of 2020, the regional turboprops operated over 50% of their pre-COVID flights. By summer 2023, recovery to approximately 90% had been achieved, and since then the levels have remained reasonably constant. The regional turboprop in-service fleet is around 10% lower than 2019 levels, with well-publicized failures of regional airlines, like flybe, since 2019 partly to blame.

The return of the regional jet class, on the other hand, has been sluggish. With 50% equivalent utilization not gained until summer 2021, the regional jets continued to have a lower utilization. Since summer 2023, the levels have been just below 80% of 2019, mainly due to the removal of almost 150 regional aircraft from the European in-service fleet. Some of this is due to some of these aircraft moving into other markets like Africa. The other reason is due to the retirement of some of these aircraft in favor of “upgauging” into bigger aircraft at a slightly lower frequency by operators. Utilization of this class is not expected to get back up to 100% with only Embraer and Comac still building regional jet-sized aircraft.

The narrowbody class, like the regional jets, took its time to return to 50% levels. Like the regional jets, it was the summer of 2021 before this marker was passed. However, unlike the regional jets, the narrowbodies have continued to grow, and as of late 2023, they were flying at levels greater than the equivalent 2019 levels. Growth has continued, and in the summer of 2024, the levels are 4% higher than in 2019. This change is aided by a fleet approximately 15% higher than in 2019, so the utilization levels do not always go hand in hand with fleet growth.

The widebody class in Europe has been no different from other parts of the globe in its sluggish climb out of the pandemic. Initially, the widebodies were helped by cargo aircraft and the need to continue transporting goods globally. However, the closed international borders for most of 2020 kept their utilization numbers down. It took until May 2024 before utilization returned to 2019 levels, meaning that we now have had a “full” recovery for the widebodies by European operators.

This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.