Flight Friday: The North American Market, Through The Lens Of Aircraft Classes

With Aviation Weeks MRO Americas event now in the books, this week’s #FlightFriday again looks at the North American market, but this time through the lens of aircraft classes—narrowbody, widebody, regional jets, as well as regional turboprops.

Contrasted with flight hours in the equivalent months in 2019, we can see that narrowbody jets have, for the whole first quarter of 2023, been flying more when compared to 2019. It should have been five consecutive months above 2019 levels. However, Southwest Airlines’ well-reported issues in December 2022 led to a loss of flying, impacting the total aggregated hours.

For the first time, in February the widebody market in North America exceeded the equivalent month in 2019. With travel restrictions finally being removed for almost everywhere on the globe, the widebody sector can be used to enable connections all over the world.

The regional turboprop market rebounded well post-pandemic and has remained at nearly 100% of 2019 levels since the beginning of 2022. A few additional regional turboprops into the market have helped bolster those numbers.

The regional jet market, on the other hand, tells a different tale. With airlines upgauging routes, in part because of the pilot shortage, we see operators decreasing frequency at some cities but putting on a single larger flight, keeping capacity on the route the same. With the natural home of the 50-seat jet previously being the U.S. legacy carrier feeder network, which is now pivoting away from these 50-seat aircraft—compounded by the fact that no new 50-seat jets are entering the market—indications are that regional jets will not return to their former utilization levels.

This data was put together using Aviation Weeks Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.