Air passenger numbers in Europe are expected to drop by 60 percent in 2020 due to the Coronavirus crisis, the global aviation industry said Thursday, with the recovery looking highly uncertain for the next three-four years. This is a rise of over 10% (Initially it was 50%) than first reported.

The Decline of Air Traffic

Although air traffic in Europe has increased in recent months since its low point in April, flights remain:

“more than 50 percent below the same period in 2019″

which means a drop of around 705 million passenger journeys, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in a speech to the press. “The near-term outlook for recovery in Europe remains highly uncertain with respect to the second wave of the pandemic and the broader global economic impact it could have,” IATA added. It has been estimated that more than seven million jobs supported by aviation, including in the tourism industry, were now “at risk”.

Has Traffic Picked Up?

Taking a look to the flashback on Tuesday 2 June 2020, the EU saw 6,013 flights in total: A decrease of 82.4% on the 34,090 flights on the equivalent day in 2019. The rest of the week also saw flights above 6,000: Wednesday 3 June – 6,610 flights, Thursday 4 June – 6,822 flights and Friday 5 June – 6,727 flights. According to the EUROCONTROL Network Manager Recovery Plan published on 4 June, this growth is set to continue with 9,000 flights a day expected in the second half of June and up to 10,500 flights a day in the first weeks of July.

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