Should We Holiday in Europe or the US?

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 30 May April, we find the following: 

• Global flights are at 88% of 2019 levels and currently at 96.5k per day, largely unchanged on the week (Chart 1).
• Chinese departures continue to recover, up 30.7% from Beijing and 18.4% from Shanghai, albeit still from low bases with Beijing operating at 23% and Shanghai operating at 11% of pre-COVID levels (Chart 3 and 4). The recovery comes as Shanghai begins formalising its reopening, beginning 1 June, alongside the release of 50 new support measures aimed at restarting the economy. Elsewhere, Japan will reopen on 10 June, following recent plans to ease restrictions from Thailand and Seoul. Overall, departures were up 2.9% WoW across Asia with the region operating at 46.5% of pre-COVID levels (Chart 4).
• European restrictions ease as more people plan to visit Europe this summer with France, Italy, and Portugal the favoured destinations. In terms of reopening, Cyprus is lifting their mask requirement for indoor areas from 1 June. On the same day, Germany will be relaxing its ‘3G rule’ which requires travellers to present a valid vaccination, recovery, or test certificate to enter the country. Departures across Europe were up 1.9% WoW, with Paris (+4.1%) leading the region. Meanwhile, the airports we track are operating at 91% of pre-COVID levels, though the region overall is operating at 80%.
• Travelling to the US becomes more expensive as travellers will have to pay a 50% higher travel promotion fee to obtain a US ESTA travel authorisation. Although the cost increase is minimal (increasing $7), over 15m visitors used an ESTA to enter the US in 2019. And the fee will likely increase ESTA revenue by over 70%. Meanwhile, this week saw fewer departures across the US (-1.1% WoW) ahead of Memorial Day. In particular, Dallas (-2.9% WoW) and Atlanta (-2.5% WoW) saw departures slow the most.
• For more information on recent changes in COVID cases, please see our weekend report by 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.

(The commentary contained in the above article does not constitute an offer or a solicitation, or a recommendation to implement or liquidate an investment or to carry out any other transaction. It should not be used as a basis for any investment decision or other decision. Any investment decision should be based on appropriate professional advice specific to your needs.)