European Departures Falling as Covid-19 Wave Picks Up Pace

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 24 October:

• Global departures continued to ease (-0.8% WoW). With the number of global departures having trended about midway between 2019 and 2021 levels so far this year, there are strong signs that there is some way to go before normal levels are reached.
• China departure count continues to decline, albeit at a slower rate (Shanghai: -14.1%; Beijing: -0.3%). It is unlikely we see a change in stance on zero-Covid soon with Covid-19 cases surging (Chart A). However, the declines may be pared soon – several China airlines have announced plans to increase the number of international flights. Excluding China, departures across Asia inched 0.7% WoW higher (Chart 2).
• Departures from Europe (-2.1% WoW) continued to slide lower driven by strikes in Milan and Rome (Chart 4). The decline could speed up with another wave of Covid-19 set to spread across Europe (Chart B). Departures from the US saw little change (+0.4% WoW).

Information on long-term movements in flight data is available below.

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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