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 4 October, we find the following:
• On Sunday, there were 10,471 scheduled departures globally and 9,338 actual take-offs, up 2.1% and 3.2% week on week, respectively. Globally, flight traffic is approaching 2021 highs but remains below 2019 levels (Chart 1).
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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 11 October, we find the following:
- On Sunday, there were 10,471 scheduled departures globally and 9,338 actual take-offs, up 2.1% and 3.2% week on week, respectively. Globally, flight traffic is approaching 2021 highs but remains below 2019 levels (Chart 1).
- US flight traffic changed only marginally over the past week. Scheduled flights increased 0.99% but take-offs decrease 0.98% with 40 fewer flights departing on 10 October versus 3 October. The largest changes came from JFK (-2.1%), Los Angeles (-1.4%), and Atlanta (-1.2%). Capacity is at 77% of pre-COVID levels (Chart 4), Los Angeles (80%) remains highest whilst JFK becomes the new lowest (74%).
- European air traffic increased after three consecutive weeks of decline. Planned flights were up 5.37%, and actual take-offs 3.38% week on week. Frankfurt experienced the largest increase (5.5%), followed by Rome (5.1%) and Paris (5%). No European no airports saw a weekly drop in take-offs (Chart 3). On capacity, Milan Bergamo remains the highest (88%) and Gatwick the lowest (39%). On average, European airport capacity stands at 65% of pre-COVID levels, 2pp higher than last week.
- Asian flight traffic increased the most out of our three regions with scheduled flights down 0.4% but take-offs up 14.38%. This reversed last week’s 11.42% drop reflecting travel during China’s Golden Week holiday. Beijing’s 38.2% WoW gain took take-offs back to levels last seen two weeks prior. Shanghai (18.8%) and Hong Kong (10.9%) also saw strong gains (Chart 3). Overall Asian capacity stands at 64% of pre-COVID levels, an 8pp increase on last week. Beijing reclaimed its top spot in terms of capacity at 88%, Singapore remained lowest (27%).
Information on long-term movements in flight data is available at the bottom of the page.