Originally Posted by
flyinthrew
% YOY was almost exactly equal from a week ago at 36.6%. Take from that what you will. What I didn’t realize was that typical October pax numbers look like July numbers. It stands to reason that if the 2020 percentages are going to track parallel to 2019 then raw numbers will go down as we go into the winter nadir. The hope is that we can at least keep the percentage growth coming even if raw numbers decrease.
I agree with most of this analysis.
We were lower on a percentage basis by the thinnest of margins - if 14 more passengers had travelled yesterday we would have had positive Week-Over-Week % growth.
I do expect that we will see Week-Over-Week declines for the 2019 numbers in the next few weeks. We ran a little hotter than I expected in the first half of October for the 2019 values. As such, I expect significant Week-Over-Week declines for the 2019 numbers in the coming weeks to balance it out to what I forecasted the October 2019 run-rate to be. Remains to be seen if our growth this year can overcome typically slower travel weeks of the year.
I would say that I don't agree that October passengers numbers look like July passenger numbers. July is the busiest travel month of the year. October is middle of the pack (~6th). November (~9th) is slower than October. If I had to guess, travel is more back-loaded in the second half of November, but impossible to know for sure. December 1st, 2019 was the busiest travel day on record. This will correspond to November 29th, 2020 (2,870,764 passengers for the 2019 values).
Someone asked a few pages back if I have all the 2019 numbers - no I don't. I found a link that detailed the Top 10 travel days of 2019. Positions 2 through 10 already occurred this year. The number one spot is the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It also means we won't see another value above 2,730,515 (the 10th position) for the remainder of the year for the 2019 numbers.
I made a bunch of projections (growth rates, key milestones, confidence intervals) in early September and early October. I'll do a write-up at the end of the month to keep myself accountable.
The same people who predicted growth would stall or drop in mid-September are now predicting 3 quarters out from now or doing simplistic 5% growth/month projections. I would say take all of these projections (including mine) with a grain of salt. People will point back to their predictions if they ultimately are proven to be accurate but almost no-one will highlight their own shortcomings. It is impossible to know before hand which is which.
Cheers,
AirlineAnalyst