Global aviation market briefing

Global capacity this month has increased by 14.2m seats compared to August 2025, equivalent to an increase of 2.6%. Two regions account for most of the growth this month, North East Asia with growth of 5.1m seats this month, and Western Europe which is up by 4.7m seats on last year. Capacity in the Middle East remains down on last year, by 1.47m seats (-5.7%), caused by the on-going instability in the region. There are three other regions that are below last year, namely Southwest Pacific (-257,000 seats), South Asia (-233,000 seats), and the Caribbean (-204,000 seats). The region showing the largest growth rate is Central/Western Africa which is up 15.2% on last year.

Global capacity is up 2.6% in August 2026, with strong growth in North East Asia (+5.1m seats) and Western Europe (+4.7m seats). Four regions are contracting year on year: the Middle East (−5.7%), the Caribbean (−4.6%), Southwest Pacific (−2.1%) and South Asia (−1.0%). The fastest-growing region by rate is Central/Western Africa, up 15.2% to 3.4 million seats, followed by North Africa (+11.2%) and Eastern/Central Europe (+10.9%).

Alaska Airlines continues to show strong frequency growth with 19.4% more flights year on year, as a result of the recent integration of Hawaiian Airlines. For the rest of the North American carriers in the Top 20, are all up between 1% and 4%, with the exception of JetBlue which has increased flights by 9.8% compared to last year. In Europe, Ryanair continues to grow, up 6% this month compared to last August, and the other major European airlines in growth this month are easyJet and Turkish Airlines, which are both up 2.4%. Across the Top 20 airlines, three are reducing capacity by more than 2%; IndiGo is down 2.9%, All Nippon Airways is down 5.7% and Deutsche Lufthansa AG is down 10.8%.

Emirates and Qatar Airways continue to record lower than average ASKs due to the Middle East situation, and are down year on year by 5.4% and 5.9% respectively. Etihad Airways is bucking that trend however and continues to show strong growth in ASKs, up 12.8% this month, the fastest growth of any carrier in the Top 20. Apart from Emirates and Qatar Airways, the other carriers which are down this month in terms of Int. ASKs are Air France which is down 0.3%, American Airlines down 0.8% and United Airlines which is down 4.1%.

Spain - United Kingdom remains the largest international country pair this month, with 6.4m seats, which is up by 504,000 seats on last year - this equates to a growth rate of 8.5%. The two fastest growing markets this month involve the Republic of Korea, the China - Republic of Korea market is up 20.6% and Japan - Republic of Korea is up 19.4%. There are four markets which are down this month versus August 2025: India - UAE (-3.5%), United Kingdom - USA (-4.6%), Turkiye - United Kingdom (-7.1%) and Mexico - USA (-8.1%).

The USA domestic market is the largest domestic market, with 91.7m seats this month, which is 8m seats ahead of the Chinese domestic market. There is strong growth in China's domestic market this month, with an increase of 4.8m seats this month, which is 6% more than last August. The strongest growth rate comes from Mexico, with an increase of 7.6% year on year. There are three domestic markets which are down versus August 2025, namely India (-0.6%), Japan (-1.8%) and Australia (-2.8%).