Aviation resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of the European aviation market

The European aviation industry experienced an unprecedented disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have a profound impact on the industry in the years to come. An investigation of the European aviation market’s performance during the pandemic and the recovery pattern is very important. Such an analysis provides an assessment of the aviation industry’s actual resilience against large-scale disruptions thus that the sector can be better prepared for future disruptions and challenges. More importantly, it contributes to a better understanding of the best business practices and industry policies in a dynamic aviation environment, and how the aviation industry may sustain growth in the years to come. For these purposes, this study first presents an overview of the European aviation market’s performance for the period of 2019–2020. In general, aviation connectivity (airports and airlines) recovered to around 60 % of the 2019 level, but less than 40 % in terms of flight movements at the end of 2020. Second, an ordered Probit model is applied to investigate the driving factors for airport and airline resilience in the European aviation market, respectively. Four key findings are obtained: (i) the number of flights is an important indicator of airport and airline resilience/recovery performance; (ii) higher airline concentration at an airport might have improved the airport’s recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. On the airline side, an airline’s higher concentration of flights at airports tends to benefit its resilience (iii) the implementation of the airport slot waiver policy, which suspended the “use it or lose it” rules, had positive impacts on airline resilience; (iv) airports with higher shares of full-service airlines (FSAs) services, or more low-cost carriers (LCCs) in service, are better positioned in recovery. There are no systematic differences caused by carrier types. Overall, our study of the European aviation market reveals positive resilience effects of market concentration and firm scale. The findings reveal another dimension in assessing the effects of market concentration and scale, in addition to their implications on competition and market power.