US Departures Didn’t Increase for Independence Day

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 4 July, we find the following: 

• Global flights are at 86% of 2019 levels, with 105k departures per day, a 20k increase from the start of the year (Chart 1).
• China’s recovery continues to stumble. The number of high-risk areas in China has shot up to 185. There was only one at the end of June. While most are in Anhui (117), Jiangsu (32), and Fujian (12), they have also appeared elsewhere, notably in Beijing and Shanghai. Despite this, visa rules have eased again. This time it’s for those wishing to work. It could help air traffic numbers increase. Already, Beijing (+35.2% WoW) and Shanghai (+29.4% WoW) airports have seen strong rebounds in departures since reopening, albeit at low capacity (Chart 4 and Chart 5). Meanwhile, Hong Kong is tightening restrictions on arriving flights. A flight only needs 5%, or five or more people to test positive on arrival for the airline to be banned for the next five days. There have been six such bans already in July, as many as the whole of June. It could get worse in August when officials hope the border re-opens with Shenzhen.
• Europe may struggle to deal with a planned summer surge in travellers. First, capacity is already high. Airports across the continent are operating at 91% of pre-COVID levels (Chart 5). Second, there’s added pressure from airlines and airports. IAG SA are cancelling flights while there have been strikes in Paris. It has seen the best recovery YTD, but other regions risk catching up this summer (Chart 2).
• In the US, across the airports we track, departures decreased 1.5% WoW, with Los Angeles seeing the biggest drop (-2.4% WoW).
• 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 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.

(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.)