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We track scheduled flights (what’s planned) and tracked flights (what’s in the air) from a sample of the largest airports across the world. Looking at data up to 20 September, we find the following:
- On Sunday, there were 10,586 scheduled departures globally and 9281 actual take-offs, up 0.9% and 0.6% WoW, respectively. Globally, flight departures are close to their 2021 highs but remain below 2019 levels (Chart 1).
- Across our five US airports, scheduled and actual flights increased 0.87% and 1.55% WoW, respectively. Actual flights for Atlanta increased the most (6.2%), followed by New York (1%) and Dallas (0.8%) (Chart 3). Overall, there were 4,115 flight departures from our selected US airports. Capacity is at 78% of pre-COVID levels (Chart 4), with Dallas highest (80%) and Atlanta lowest (76%).
- European air traffic decreased over the past week – planned flights were up 0.62% but actual flights decreased -0.66% WoW, respectively. Rome experienced the largest decrease (-4.4%) (Chart 3). In terms of capacity, Milan Bergamo remains highest (96%) and Gatwick lowest (43%). On average, European airport capacity stands at 66% of pre-COVID levels.
- Across Asian airports, planned and actual flights increased 0.95% and 0.24% WoW, respectively. The expansion is driven mainly by Seoul and Shanghai increasing the most (Charts 2 and 3). Beijing and Hong Kong were the only decreases (Chart 3). Overall capacity stands at 57% of pre-COVID levels, with Hong Kong highest (71%) and Singapore lowest (28%).
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
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 macro research analyst at Macro Hive, and is currently finishing an MSc in Finance at Cass Business School.
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