This chart publicized by this article shows the departure seats, (not necessarily the revenue miles) by week. The tan area are Chinese international and the red area is Chinese domestic capacity.
It is a great to see a bottom and rebound in one of the largest air markets in the world.
There is a lot we can learn from the initial Chinese recovery since their size is comparable to the US or European markets. If the US or Europe is able to contain and turn the spread of COVID-19 we could see a similar recovery.
A couple of things to note
- Just like the European and US carriers international capacity was virtually eliminated by the Chinese.
- Domestic capacity is the first to recover (not surprisingly) from a pre-drop high of 14 Million per week down to 4 Million per week in a matter of two weeks (71% drop Domestically).
- Total capacity dropped from 16 Million to 4.5 Million per week over two weeks (still about a 71% drop)
- Within 4 weeks of bottoming out capacity was back up to 10 Million per week. (Recovered to a 37% drop from Pre-drop Capacity)
- International capacity will likely be the last thing to recover
The different lines are different Chinese carriers. For a more detailed explanation please go to that website. However, what is instructive is that it seems the smaller carriers might bounce back a little quicker on the initial uptake (from a % standpoint), but as a whole recovery is pretty consistent. The quicker uptake might just be the inertia of the larger operations, and it could be suspected that we could see those roles reverse later in the coming trends.
