Air Traffic Rising to Post-Pandemic Highs

We track scheduled flights (what’s planned) and tracked flights (what took off) from a sample of the largest airports across the world.

Looking at data up to 13 June, we find the following: 

• Global flights are at 85% of 2019 levels,with the 7D MA above 100k daily flights for the first time since the pandemic struck.
• China’s reopening continues, albeit with some temporary setbacks. Shanghai temporarily locked down eight districts, but reopened following the completion of mass testing. Beijing, meanwhile, shut its entertainment district to contain a recent outbreak. As of 14 June, the nation as a whole reported 95 new cases, with 5 in Shanghai, and 42 in Beijing. Flight capacity usage in Beijing and Shanghai remains very low (25% and 17% respectively) but rising (+2ppt and +4ppt WoW).
• In Europe, the European Parliament and EU member states’ negotiators reached a deal to prolong the EU Digital COVID Certificate until June 2023 to ensure future freedom of movement in case of a new variant.  Portugal announced a notable increase in tourism figures (still far below pre-pandemic levels), while Germany expects a new spike in cases in Autumn and Winter. European flight capacity remains strong, with most of the airports we look at working at +90% capacity (Chart 4).
• In the US, Dallas (+9.6% WoW) and New York (+4.6%) saw the greatest increase in tracked flights. The two airports have led the recovery in North America, operating at 97% and 93% capacity, while Atlanta and Chicago lag below 80%.
• For more information on recent changes in COVID cases, please see our weekend report by Dominique and Henry.

Information on long-term movements in flight data is available at the bottom of the page.

US

UK

Italy

Spain

Germany

France

Canada

China

Japan

Hong Kong

South Korea

Singapore

Thailand

Bilal Hafeez is the CEO and Head of Research at Macro Hive. He spent over twenty years doing research at big banks – JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura, where he had various “Global Head” roles and did FX, rates and cross-markets research.

Ben Ford is a Researcher at Macro Hive. Ben studied BSc Financial Mathematics at Cardiff University and MSc Finance at Cass Business School, his dissertations were on the tails of GARCH volatility models, and foreign exchange investment strategies during crises, respectively.

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