Flight Friday: How Narrowbodies Are Leading The Recovery Across The Americas

With Routes Americas 2023 happening March 21-23 in Chicago, this week's Flight Friday looks at how many flights Latin and North American narrowbody and widebody operated jets are making compared to their equivalent month in 2019.

The first group to return to 100% of 2019 levels was the Latin America narrowbody market, which returned to pre-2019 levels in April 2022, and has remained above the 100% mark every month since.

The North American narrowbody market was the next to surpass the 100% mark during September 2022. The dip in December 2022, can be attributed in part to the troubles suffered by Southwest Airlines during the Holiday period.

North American widebody flight surpassed the 100% mark during February 2023. This was the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic that North American widebody aircraft flew more flights than in their equivalent month in 2019.

While the Latin America narrowbody market raced to 100% of equivalent 2019 flights in April 2022, the region’s widebodies are taking a lot longer to recover, having remained around the 70% mark since April 2022.

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