A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Switzerland’s air navigation service provider, Skyguide, revealed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the country’s aviation traffic in its first-half 2020 statistics&nbsp;released today.

 


During the first six months of the year, it monitored and managed 270,610 IFR flights, representing a year-over-year decline of more than 57 percent. While the agency saw an increase in flights in January and February, it noted a 47.2 percent collapse from mid-March onward. According to Skyguide, traffic reached a nadir in April, down 93 percent from the same month in 2019, but began to slowly recover in May (-91 percent) and June (-83 percent) following the lifting of some local travel restrictions and closures.

 


Aside from cargo flights, which were only slightly affected, business aviation traffic suffered the least erosion during the first half of the year, down by 37.8 percent, followed by the charter segment at 39.2 percent.

 


At major airports such as Zurich and Geneva, IFR movements were down by 56.6 percent and 50.9 percent, respectively, during the first half of the year. Skyguide noted that traffic declines at many of the country’s regional airports were less severe due to their higher percentage of unscheduled flights.

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Swiss Air Traffic Down Nearly 60 Percent in 1H 2020

Statistics released today by Switizerland's air navigation service provider reveal the impact of the Covid pandemic on the country's air travel.

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