Page 38 - World Airnews Magazine February Edition 2021

FEATURE

BUILD BACK BETTER

In its first ‘Think Paper’ of the year, Eurocontrol analysed how

COVID-19 impacted flights in Europe last year and how airlines

can expect a continued slow recovery of passenger demand.
Text and graphs all courtesy Eurocontrol.

-0.4% and +0.9% respectively, March saw lifting of travel restrictions in most countries
a precipitous decline as countries closed and the start of the summer season.

urocontrol published its first "Think Pa- borders and limited traffic increasingly to However, spiking infection rates across

Eper" of the new year and analysed how essential supplies and repatriation, closing the European area after the summer led

COVID-19 impacted flights in Europe last year the month at -86.1% of 2019 levels (4,202 to the re-introduction of measures in an

and how the region's airlines can expect a con- daily average flights). uncoordinated fashion, causing traffic to

tinued slow recovery of passenger demand to By 12 April, the lowest point of the crisis, decline steadily from 15,964 flights on 1

pre COVID-19 air traffic levels in 2021. traffic had bottomed out at an unprece- September, -54.8%, to end the year at a

Developed based on data taken from Euro- dented -92.8% or just 2,099 daily flights. weekly daily average of 7,199 flights or
control's network traffic aviation databases, From there on, a very slow recovery start- -73.1%.

ed, with the network ending May at -89.4%
the Think Paper further predicts the recovery (3,586 daily average flights). COVID IMPACT ON AIRLINES AND

in passenger demand for European airlines to AIRCRAFT

start ramping back up by this year’s 2021. The The effectiveness of Europe-wide lockdowns Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, remained

statistics collected tell their own story. at bringing new infections under control saw

European countries increasingly lifting restric- top over 2020, but with a daily operating

COVID IMPACT ON FLIGHTS tions, with traffic recovering to finish -73.8% in average of just 951 daily flights over the

Traffic for 2020 closed out at -55% of 2019 June with 9,296 daily average flights. year vs. 2,323 in 2019 - a decrease of 59%.

levels. In total, 5.0 million flights operated Traffic stabilised over the summer at The average decline in flights among the

in 2020 compared with 11.1 in 2019, a loss around -51%, with the 18,802 flights on 28 top 10 European airlines was between -45%

of 6.1 million flights. While January and August (-49.0% of 2019) marking the highest and -67%.

February 2020 saw year-on-year traffic of number of flights in 2020. This reflected the The pandemic triggered two changes in

Figure 1 shows the pandemic impact across Europe for the period 1 March-31 December
World Airnews | February 2021
— 36 —