China | Emerging Markets | Europe | Global
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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 14 November:
- Global departures are down 7.5% from their 2022 peak. The downturn has extended another 1.2% WoW. Global departures have remained consistently below normal (2019) levels so far in 2022, suggesting the post-pandemic recovery is not yet complete. However, they show improvement from 2021.
- China eased zero-Covid restrictions, and Covid-19 cases have surged. Officials now designate areas as either high- or low-risk, having removed medium-risk as an option (Chart A). Departures have fluctuated (Beijing: -6.6% WoW; Shanghai: +4.4% WoW). Elsewhere in Asia, departures have continued to grind higher (+0.5% WoW).
- Departures from Europe continued to decline (-2.0% WoW) led by another rapid decrease from London Gatwick (-6.6% WoW) as no European airport (that we track) saw an increase in departures. In contrast, departures from the US picked up (+3.4% WoW).
Information on long-term movements in flight data is available below.