Number of flights hits new high since March 2020

Could this signal a restart for international aviation?

The number of flights in the sky has reached its highest level since before the pandemic began last year.

FlightRadar24 tracked 92,095 passenger flights last Friday, 18 June, the highest number since March 2020, it said.

This represents a sharp uptick on the number of planes in the air on the same date in 2020, when just over 50,000 commercial jets were airborne.

Last spring, many nations around the world severely restricted international travel to deal with the spread of Covid and the number of flights plummeted as a result.

Figures from Iata, the airline body, show that 2020 was the worst year on record for aviation. Full-year global passenger traffic fell by 65.9 per cent compared to 2019, “by far the sharpest traffic decline in aviation history”.

On 18 June 2019, in “normal” times, 124,516 planes were tracked.

According to FlightRadar24 statistics, the number of planes in the air around the world has been rising incrementally since the middle of February, as countries begin to exit lockdown.

The perky flight data comes amid a challenging time for the British travel industry, which is hampered by a traffic light system. Just 11 nations are currently sitting on the “green list”, from where returning travellers need not quarantine, with Gibraltar and Iceland the only viable holiday destinations.

Most of the European summer hotspots, whose resorts would usually be filling up this month, are on the “amber” list – arrivals must self-isolate for 10 days upon entry to the UK and take two PCR tests.

The next traffic light reshuffle is due on 24 June.