The Pandemic
The Global Pandemic will continue to take its toll on the aviation industry, several governments will continue to reintroduce travel restrictions amid the new rise of the Coronavirus Variants. In the long term industry stakeholders will be keen to find a balanced approach in the near future, so rather than closing its boarders they will prefer to have vaccination and testing requirements.
A comeback For Boeing
The Boeing 737 made a comeback in different regions but it wasn’t the best year for the Boeing manufacturer. The 787 program had issues and the 777X project was postponed and then delivery numbers fell significantly behind for the Airbus. The 747 program will come to an end sometime in 2022 paving the way for Boeing to start to concentrate on other projects or could even start on its fresh much-speculated clean sheet designs.
Cargo Will Continue To Boom
In 2020 and 2021 the cargo industry have a significant boom in activity amid new consumer habits backed by the e-commerce boost. The urgent need for medical supplies fuelled the aviation industry in operations, the rise is set to continue in 2022. Qantas have recently been converting their aircrafts into freighters, there has also been a plethora of orders for freighters such as the Boeing 777F and Airbus A350F.
New Low Cost International Offerings
In the last few years we have seen low-cost start-ups emerging, the PLAY airlines and Norse Atlantic Airways have recently been making a name for themselves in Europe. French Bee Airlines recently launched their services to New York and have said they will be heading to Los Angles next spring. Flypop Airlines is also edging closer to deploying its A330s to India from the United Kingdom in order to cater to underserved markets.
The Superjumbo
At the end of last year several airlines announced the return of the superjumbo Airbus A380, we can expect to see several of them in the skies in 2022. British Airways announced that it has added three US A380 destinations for the summer. Singapore Airlines is also planning a notable increase in flights with the quad jet for the same period of British Airways with eight destinations on the horizon including a fifth freedom flight to New York JFK from Frankfurt.
Sustainability Priorities
Airbus hosted a summit about the sustainability priorities and COP26 was heavily focused on the aviation industry’s role in climate initiatives. We will see more action of sustainability this year, airlines will be utilizing sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) much more. We can also expect a few firsts with electric and hydrogen solutions. EVTOL programs will be taking the next step to overhaul local networks this decade.
