The Covid pandemic’s initial impact in the spring of 2020 constituted an unprecedented shock to the global industry, and ever since the recovery path has been hard to chart. At the request of AIN data analytics specialist Spire Aviation generated data from its own constellation of more than 110 satellites to track the number of flights operated by six international carriers between January 2020 and the end of May 2021. The variations in their fortunes are striking, reflecting wide differences in Covid’s continuing impact, governmental responses, and, very likely, societal attitudes toward the risk from travel.
Air China has fully restored pre-pandemic levels of flight activity, hitting a year-to-date peak of almost 40,000 flights in April. In the U.S., United Airlines has yet to completely reverse its descent but has achieved a mainly steady recovery to reach almost 54,000 flights in May after hitting some new turbulence around September 2020 and February 2021.
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