The pandemic has changed how we fly, dramatically reducing the number of flights around the world. To show how Covid-19 has altered the skies, The Wall Street Journal analyzed flight data from aviation data provider Cirium Core for a 24-hour period—Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. That was a month after the new coronavirus forced Wuhan, China, into lockdown and a week after Italy ordered Europe’s first lockdowns. It was still before other big countries initiated lockdowns and travel bans to slow the spread.
Here is the same 24-hour period a year later, on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021. At big airline hubs, such as New York, London, Dubai and Singapore, possible destinations have fallen sharply. Many routes still in operation are serviced by far fewer flights a day.
International routes were down 60%, mostly because of a patchwork of differing travel bans by countries around the world. Even without travel restrictions, passengers remain wary. U.S. domestic routes were down 16%. Here’s a breakdown:
The U.S. shed more routes than anywhere, but that’s because it’s such a bigger aviation market. As a percentage of total routes, Europe took a bigger hit. In the U.K., airlines flew 78% fewer routes. A few small markets, like the Marshall Islands and Syria, didn’t have a single flight in or out on Feb. 26 this year. Meanwhile, Chinese domestic flights were brisk amid that country’s quick recovery.
You can still get to most international destinations from America’s largest hubs, including New York, though your choice of flights is much smaller. Not so for smaller hubs. Cincinnati’s airport, for instance, no longer offers near-daily flights to Paris.