Air traffic data shows less crowded skies since the coronavirus spread
As COVID-19 tore from one region to the next over the last month, the travel restrictions and flight cuts that followed transformed our skies.
Data visualizations from flight-tracking service Flightradar24 show how air traffic has plummeted, so far most visibly in the final week of March, when commercial flights dropped by 55% compared to 2019 levels, according to the firm. February was a different story, as global commercial air traffic dropped just 4.3% for the month compared to the previous year, most significantly in China.
A few examples of how the skies have changed in the last month.
This is global flight traffic 1-31 March each day at 15:00 UTC.
1 March at 15:00: 14,629 flights
31 March at 15:00: 5632 flightsLive flights: https://t.co/krDfUYSbzK pic.twitter.com/pwHk4qolgN
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 31, 2020
Flightradar24’s March visualizations show how North American cuts trailed those in Europe, roughly following the path of the outbreak. The tracking service anticipates that the trend will continue, as U.S. airlines cut tens of thousands of flights, one after another.
And over to North America. These images are from each day at 18:00 (peak traffic).
1 March at 15:00: 8,396 flights
31 March at 15:00: 3,166 flights pic.twitter.com/YtMkIa21bw— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 31, 2020
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