These unprecedented times have seen more than half of global seat capacity wiped from schedules in less than three months, writes OAG.

According to OAG Aviation Worldwide, another 20 million seats were removed from scheduled services last week, which includes 4.4 million seats from the US market.

“It took the airline industry some eight weeks for global capacity to fall from 106 million to 90 million. It took a further two weeks for that to fall to 49 million,” OAG senior analyst John Grant said in a blog post.

Grant said it could plummet further to 40 million before the industry embarks on a slow recovery.

Of course, that depends on how soon and how effectively the US and other hard-hit nations can contain the coronavirus spread.

IATA’s latest estimate says airlines could lose $252 billion in revenue this year, as countries start dispersing financial aid to keep airlines afloat.

US airlines are expecting to receive more than $50billion from federal coffers