Thousands Of Passenger Jets Still Flying Despite Coronavirus Travel Restrictions, Here¡¯s Why

COVID-19, also known as the novel coronavirus, has now ¡®visited¡¯ so many countries in the past couple of months that it¡¯ll put some frequent fliers to shame. Consequently, nearly every country has put travel restrictions in place.

India for example has restricted even Indian citizens from entering the country if they¡¯re inbound from UK, Turkey or anywhere in the EU. In fact all incoming flights to India have been suspended for a week and all tourists and e-visas stand suspended. The United States has closed its 8,891 km long border with Canada, for all non-essential travel and suspended all travel from Europe too.

Flightradar24 / Aircraft traffic over India.

Other countries have similar restrictions. Japan has banned entry of travellers who have been to China, Iran or Italy. Australia has banned travellers from UK. Thailand has cancelled its popular visa on arrival for 18 countries. With such restrictions in place, travelling from one country to another is pretty much impossible. So you¡¯re probably wondering ¨C with no passengers to ferry, all those huge air planes must be parked on the tarmac at various airports of the world. Wrong!

While there are reports that some airports are working at reduced capacity there¡¯s still thousands of planes still flying across the globe. Some on intercontinental flights. Want to know why? It¡¯s all because of the way the airports, and consequently the airlines, work.

Flightradar24 / Intercontinental traffic hasn't slowed down between US and Europe.

Most busy airports work on slots for take-offs and landings. That is, a plane can take off at a designated time slot from one airport and land at the other at a designated landing slot. This helps keep chaos in the air to a minimum and make efficient use of resources on the ground. These slots are managed by the airport according to Worldwide Slot Guidelines of the IATA (International Air Transport Association).

So if an airline wants to take off from an airport and land on another, it has to apply for a slot. But with airports getting busier and new airlines coming into business, these slots are hard to come by. And with demand outstripping supply, these slots are prized commodities and prices go in the millions. For example, Oman Air reportedly paid $75 million for a pair of slots at London¡¯s Heathrow airport to Air France.

But that still doesn¡¯t explain the current air traffic. The thing is, to retain these slots for the next year, airlines should have 80 per cent utilisation for these slots or they stand to lose them.

Simply put, airlines have to fly planes and use these slots if they want to retain lucrative slots such early morning landing slots at busy terminals like Heathrow or JFK. Even if there are no passengers. So while governments can prevent people from entering their respective countries, there¡¯s no one stopping airlines from still flying their planes. No wonder there are so many empty plane tweets these days.

Flight was virtually empty pic.twitter.com/0Z5NVP1s7e

¡ª mark rowan ?? (@markrowan6260) March 16, 2020

... we¡¯re done boarding. My flight is basically empty. pic.twitter.com/UPAcvr87KF

¡ª Amy (@TheAmyCode) March 17, 2020

The disadvantages are apparent, pollution being the biggest. According to a study by The International Council On Clean Transportation, carbon-dioxide emissions by airlines increased by 32 per cent between 2013 and 2018. And passenger traffic is the biggest culprit. In 2018 the passenger aircraft amounted for 81 per cent of the total emissions.

There is however some respite on the way; EU has agreed to a waiver of airline requirement of 80 per cent utilisation till October 24. The sad bit is that this is meant to help the aviation industry. It's unfortunately not the result of compassion for the environment or concern over people dying because of coronavirus.

So when you look up at the sky and see planes flying, you know what¡¯s up.