Aviation’s slow recovery: May air traffic statistics

As the aviation industry continues to find its way in the wake of COVID-19, we saw a resurgence in total flight activity in May, driven mostly by non-commercial flights. In May, Flightradar24 tracked more than 100,000 total daily flights for the first time since the end of March. Commercial flight activity continues to climb from its mid-April lows, but is growing at a much slower rate.

Total flights down 52% in May, compared to 2019

The total number of flights tracked in May 2020 was down 52% from May 2019. In April, total flights were 62% below 2019. The increase in total flights is due mostly to non-commercial flight activity. Commercial flight activity increased slightly in May down just 70.8% from 2019, compared to 73.7% in April.

The busiest day in May for total flights was 21 May with 121,065 flights tracked. That’s well below the 188,400 flights tracked on 21 May 2019.

Commercial flights down 70.8% in May, compared to 2019

Commercial traffic continued its slow recovery in May, though we expect that pace to increase in June as additional airlines restart more of the operations.