EUROCONTROL released its latest set of traffic scenarios on April 6, which reveal traffic returning to between 83% and 96% of 2019 levels by the end of 2022.

With the peak summer holidays fast approaching, it's no surprise that traffic jumps steadily from May to July. What's more encouraging is that EUROCONTROL forecasts it to stay at summer levels for each month until year-end.

So taking the middle or base scenario, traffic will grow steadily from April, reaching 89% in August. It then sits at 90% until December, when it hits its peak at 92% of 2019 traffic volumes.

Airlines such as Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz, Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa are adding capacity now in readiness for a strong summer season.

It's full steam ahead for 2022, unless?

The analysis has factored in the impact on the network and fuel prices due to the crisis in Ukraine, says EUROCONTROL Director General Eamonn Brennan.

He also says that airlines are adding lots of capacity, and some are outperforming their pre-pandemic levels.

"People are showing that they are really keen to fly - many for the first time since before the pandemic began. Hitting 90% or more of 2019 traffic at peak summer moments is firmly on the cards, and we expect holiday destinations and some other parts of the network to exceed 100% of their 2019 levels."

The forecasts are a collaboration between EUROCONTROL and the airline sector. They combine airlines' planned capacity levels, the latest actual data, and historical network trends to generate the analysis.

EUROCONTROL regularly issues these reports with three scenarios; in this one, they are labeled, rather unimaginatively, as high, base and low.

Looking on the bright side, the 'high' scenario assumes a rapid acceleration to 95% over summer, with most global flows resuming and no further adverse impacts post-summer heading to pre-pandemic levels at year-end.

"No further adverse impacts" is the key to all this optimism. Given what's happened in the last two to three years, that's hard to imagine but maybe no new COVID variant will sneak out and international travel will travel resume.

As well as COVID and geopolitical turmoil, Brennan sees staffing as another danger,

"We're seeing staff shortages in parts of the industry, particularly at airports in key roles such as airport screeners or ground handlers and this needs to be carefully managed."

Which airlines and airports are doing well right now?

At the end of March EUROCONTROL also issued its Comprehensive Assessment of European Aviation. One chart shows that in March the actual traffic reached 76% of 2019 numbers, between the base of 85% and the low of 70%.

The report also reveals that for the week of 24-30 March Ryanair's average flights per day of 2,503 exceeded their 2019 number by 13% The only other airline in the top 10 with a positive return was Wizz at 6%.

In that week traffic reached 77% of 2019 levels, the busiest for flights was the UK and the busiest airport was Amsterdam, followed by IGA Istanbul, Paris CDG and London Heathrow.

The top global airport was Atlanta ATL, followed by Chicago ORD, Dallas Fort Worth DFW and Denver DEN.

So the statistics back up the optimism and it really does seem like the rest of 2022 will see commercial aviation reborn. Unless something unexpected happens - again.