New Travel ban – nearly 2 million airline seats affected

• March 13, 2020
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The Europe to United States travel ban will have far-reaching implications for the global aviation industry. The ban will affect 10.9% of all international flights and 16.9% of all scheduled international seats between the United States and Schengen countries. Overall, 6,747 flights and roughly 2 million seats will be affected each way over the next four weeks.

The world’s leading provider of travel data and insight OAG has released its latest analysis on the global impact of the coronavirus on the air travel market.

Delta and United Airlines are the most affected U.S. carriers. Together, they account for 31% of the affected flights. Lufthansa is the most affected European airline (13%). The most affected European countries are Germany, France and the Netherlands—which service 57% of all flights between the Schengen Area and U.S.

Looking ahead to scheduled capacity for April 2020, as of March 12, 2020, there are currently 13,169 scheduled, one-way flights from Europe to the U.S., including the United Kingdom. The countries with the most scheduled flights include the UK (4,121 flights), Germany (1741 flights), France (1,570 flights), Netherlands (1,212 flights) and Spain (851 flights).

Key Insights:

• Globally, the number of scheduled flights is now down by 10% compared to the 2nd week of March in 2019.
•  The impact on Chinese aviation appears to have bottomed out but still some way from recovery.
• Flights from Hong Kong are nearly 80% down on where they were this time last year.
• The past week has seen a steep decrease in scheduled flights from South Korea, which are now running at less than half the number of a year ago.
• Japan has also seen a sharp decline in departing flights and is now around 15% below where they were this time last year.
• Although the USA is now seeing capacity withdrawn, it is less than 2% below where it was a year ago.
• In Europe, the past week has seen the volume of flights drop compared to a year ago in key markets such as Italy, Germany and the UK (although in the UK the failure of Flybe will be contributing to the effect).