Commercial flights top 50,000 for the first time since March

Flightradar24 tracked 50,051 commercial flights on 18 June, the first time since 24 March that more than 50,000 commercial flights took to the sky. The low point in commercial traffic occurred on 12 April when we tracked just 23,923 commercial flights. Thus far however, non-commercial traffic growth has lead the way.

More than 50,000 commercial flights

Commercial flight activity has grown steadily since mid-April lows, but remains far below 2019 levels. While 18 June’s 50,051 flights is a positive step, on the third Thursday of June 2019 (21 June) we tracked 126,753 commercial flights.

Commercial flights as a share of total flights

On 18 June 2020, commercial flights accounted for 38.8% of total flight activity. In 2019, on the third Thursday in June, commercial flights made up 57.6% of total flights.

As airlines grow their schedules, especially European and North American airlines anticipating summer travel demand, we expect to see the number of commercial flights rise. However, any second wave of COVID-19 cases could have an adverse impact on flight activity, such as we’ve seen in Beijing during the third week of June.