Does the Tokyo Olympics Need Aviation to be Back?

Will they? Won’t they? The Tokyo Olympics didn’t happen in 2020 and now the question is will they happen in 2021

Obviously, the primary concern for the organisers is the risk of spreading covid-19, but to what extent does the event also rely on the world of global aviation being at least partially recovered. It is, after all, a major international event played out on the world stage. It would be easy to think that this means that a successful Games also depends on vast numbers of visitors coming from all over the world. But is that the case? Typically, around 14,000 athletes participate in each Olympics and they have a support team around them. But these aren’t huge numbers when it comes to aviation. An airport such as Tokyo Haneda averaged 7 million passengers each month through 2019. Do the Olympics generate large numbers of additional foreign visitors for the host nation? The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.