It’s almost impossible to answer some key questions right now. How many people will want to fly? How soon? How many people will be afford it? What will the competition do, flood the market with overcapacity and operate at a loss? For how long? Which carriers will file for chap 11 and how soon?

My personal forecast:

Let’s assume that in QTR4 ‘20 everybody wants to fly again. No more covid19 fears. We’re ready to hit the road. I hardly think that 90% of the costumers that flew with us in ‘19 will be able to afford to do so. I’m giving it at least a 10-15% reduction in demand by QTR4 solely based on economic factors.

Now let’s play some what ifs with covid19 fears. Assuming we re-open the economy in June, we know for sure many costumers that could still afford to fly will certainly delay their leisure travel plans. Some will take some awesome $$$ deals maybe in late July/early August, although I think more than half of them will still cancel their travel plans for the remainder of the summer. Then, low season will arrive. Probably thanksgiving will bring some hope and some solid desire to fly again, but less people will be able to afford it.
Mixing these factors I’d say May and June will be bloody months, and July we’ll see the first signs of steady increase in demand. Being optimistic, I’d say demand will be back at 50% by July/August and maybe 70-85% by December.

For NK, as far as going back to pre-covid19 levels, I have my money on spring brake ‘21 but it could be easily pushed back to summer ‘21. Whatever happens to us next year will be greatly affected by how the rest of the airlines financially emerge from this. The big winners will be airlines that could rise cash to fuel swap. SWA it’s the one to watch. They entered this crisis in a great financial position and will benefit in renegotiating MAX deliveries. They’ll absolutely try to hedge as much fuel as possible. They could give hell to the rest of the industry in ‘21-‘22.