Flight Numbers Steady

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 8 August:

• Global flights are at 86% of 2019 levels, with 7d MA departures dropping marginally again to 107.4k per day (Chart 1). Whether this ends up as the near-term peak remains to be seen. Historic seasonalities suggest a reduction from here.
• Asia continues to recover better than the RoW. The recovery appears to be topping out in Europe, while in the US flight numbers have been in decline since the start of July (Chart 2).
• Shanghai (+19% WoW) led the way once again, albeit from a still low base (Chart 4). The fallout from US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s  visit to Taiwan remains to be seen. As drills continue in the Taiwan Strait, there is a risk that it could come to affect cross-border travel.
• Elsewhere, COVID restrictions are mostly lifted across Europe, although another wave of COVID cases is expected, and countries are already beginning to take action (Germany will make masks obligatory on flights from October). The region continues to suffer widespread flight cancellations.
• Frankfurt and Munich (+11% WoW) saw strong rebounds on the week, following recent declines. The laggard was meanwhile Chicago, which saw a 7% fall in flights.
• For more information on recent changes in COVID cases, please see our weekend report.

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.)