On the Road to Recovery?
ChatGPT suggested I write a post about the aviation industry’s recovery from the impacts of COVID-19. Still, this week's news suggests that this road to recovery remains bumpy. But I do love data and numbers, so let’s see how we are going.
From the data I was able to source, the headline would be “not quite there”. While some airports have been happy to report passenger numbers at pre-COVID levels, the data shows averages still consistently falling below those airports’ 2019 monthly average.
I have charted each airport’s monthly movements in the graphs below. However, to accommodate the raw difference in monthly totals (even among the top ten airports in each region) and each airport’s seasonal variation, I have plotted a ratio of the traffic against the airport’s 2019 average. I also focused on the top 10 airports in terms of traffic to help keep the charts in check.
Australia
Let’s start close to my home. The start of COVID’s initial impact coincided with our seasonal lull. So it looks like we got a running start on the traffic drop-off. A couple of our airports suffered through 2020, but recovery looked encouraging until midway through 2021. A second bounce has us hovering around 90% of average 2019 levels, with some airports looking like they are sustaining pre-COVID traffic levels.
Is this our new normal? Should we reset the clock and focus on sustained growth from this point rather than expect another bump? My gut says yes.
I feel obligated to point out that Australia’s publicly reported data contains “regular public transport” flight numbers. The actual figures for some of our airports may look different when charter aircraft movements are included. Perth, Brisbane and other airports support significant mining charter flights that do not get reported through this process.
Europe
Thanks to some easy-to-access data, let’s jump over to Europe. Now, eagle-eyed readers may notice that I have only included 9 airports in this chart. That is because Istanbul’s new airport only came online in 2019, and its figures skewed the data.
Europe’s road into COVID looks a little similar to Australia’s. However, the Northern Hemisphere’s general seasonality differs from ours on the right side of the globe. But their recovery has taken a slightly different path. The impact of the third wave of COVID came a little earlier in Europe - no doubt due to the northern winter.
Recent traffic levels are sitting around 80% of 2019 averages.
United States
In the United States, the initial impact wasn’t as drastic as elsewhere, and recovery appears to have been relatively consistent. But save for a couple of airports, monthly traffic figures have settled at approximately 85%-90% of the historical average. It also looks like there is more variability in the US over the other two regions.
In these volatile times, I’d rather not prognosticate on future air traffic trends. That is a fraught business. So, like most of the industry, I’m sure I will keep doing my best to ensure our airports are safe, efficient and ready for whatever may come down the line.
ChatGPT prologue: While it suggested this post. It couldn’t really help me out as the AI has only been trained on data up to 2021. So it doesn’t know much about what is happening now. I will be writing about specific uses for this system in the coming days though.
