Business Wire

OG-CIRIUM

4.1.2021 18:17:10 CET | Business Wire | Press release

Share
Airlines Were on Time in 2020, but Passenger Flights Operated Halved Compared to 2019, Reveals Cirium

Over 180 of the major global airlines were on time in 2020, according to a new report by Cirium, the global aviation data company. The Cirium Airline Insights Review 2020 reveals that only 30 major airlines achieved this standard pre-pandemic. But over 60%—or 180 of 300 airlines globally—achieved a 90% or higher on-time arrival percentage since February 2020.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210104005632/en/

On-time performance of the top 300 global airlines significantly improved as COVID-19 reduced the number of flights in the air. In 2020, airlines only flew half of the flights flown the previous year.

“The pandemic caused a significant reduction in flight volume with airlines operating 49% fewer flights in 2020. The factors that normally cause flight delays didn’t exist, such as congestion at the airport. Overall global passenger traffic was down in 2020 by 67% from the previous year,” said Jeremy Bowen, CEO of Cirium.

Cirium’s top 10 league table for flights operated by country shows that the majority of flights were operated in the US, despite a 42% year-over-year drop in the market. China maintained its position, with only 24% of that market’s flights down versus 2019.

Japan overtook India, moving up to 3rd place as India’s flights were down 50% versus 2019. The UK was hit heavily with 67% of flights down compared to last year, moving it to 8th place from 5th . Russia moved from 10th place in 2019 to 5th in 2020 and Indonesia moved into the top 10.

Top 10 countries by passenger flights flown 2020

Rank

Country

Total flights flown 2020

Rank in 2019

% YoY diff

1

United States

5.1M

#1

-42%

2

China

3.4M

#2

-24%

3

Japan

638K

#4

-43%

4

India

592K

#3

-50%

5

Russia

486K

#10

-34%

6

Brazil

382K

#9

-53%

7

Spain

352K

#7

-61%

8

United Kingdom

340K

#5

-67%

9

Indonesia

333K

#12

-53%

10

Mexico

332K

#15

-44%

 

Source: Cirium Core, flights tracked data (passenger flights - narrowbody, widebody and regional) for Jan 1 to Dec 31, date filed Jan 1, 2021

Asia-Pacific carriers recovered much quicker in 2020 than their global peers and rose in the rankings in flights operated. Out of the top 10 global airlines, China Southern Airlines’ passenger flights only dropped 28% versus 2019. United Airlines was the most impacted of the top 10, with a 54% drop in flights flown versus 2019.

No European carriers feature in the 2020 list. Ryanair moved to 13th place (from 6th ) as the airline’s flights flown were down 72% versus the year before. Lufthansa was 11th in 2019 but missed out on the 2020 top 10, finishing at 29th place as flights flown dropped by 69% in 2020.

Top 10 airlines by passenger flights flown 2020

Rank

Airline code

Airline

Total flights flown 2020

Rank in 2019

% YoY diff

1

WN

Southwest Airlines

896K

#1

-34%

2

AA

American Airlines

622K

#3

-44%

3

DL

Delta Air Lines

619K

#2

-46%

4

OO

SkyWest Airlines

597K

#4

-30%

5

CZ

China Southern Airlines

521K

#7

-28%

6

UA

United Airlines

372K

#5

-54%

7

MU

China Eastern Airlines

321K

#9

-33%

8

CA

Air China

312K

#10

-30%

9

6E

IndiGo

281K

#8

-45%

10

YX

Republic Airways

217K

#15

-37%

Source: Cirium Core, flights tracked data (passenger flights - narrowbody, widebody and regional) for Jan 1 to Dec 31, date filed Jan 1, 2021

“Domestic travel has recovered faster and airlines with a dominant domestic market come back quicker,” Bowen said. “That is especially the case in Asia-Pacific where recovery is more positive. The US and Europe have experienced setbacks with government-enforced restrictions and additional waves of COVID-19 affecting travel.”

Travel restrictions and the shift to more leisure travel versus business travel changed the top 10 league table for flights flown by airport extensively.

Chicago O’Hare is usually the busiest airport globally for passenger flights, however the pandemic caused a 46% reduction in flights for the airport in 2020. Three Chinese airports—Guangzhou Baiyun, Chengdu Shuangliu, and Shenzhen Bao’an—moved into the global top 10 busiest airports by arriving passenger flights.

Top 10 airports by passenger flights flown 2020

Rank

Airport code

Airport

Total flights flown 2020

Rank in 2019

% YoY diff

1

ATL

Atlanta US

260K

#2

-40%

2

DFW

Dallas US

235K

#3

-30%

3

ORD

Chicago US

234K

#1

-46%

4

DEN

Denver US

202K

#5

-32%

5

CLT

Charlotte US

182K

#7

-32%

6

CAN

Guangzhou CN

165K

#13

-28%

7

LAX

Los Angeles US

156K

#4

-50%

8

CTU

Chengdu CN

148K

#37

-16%

9

SZX

Shenzhen CN

139K

#42

-16%

10

SEA

Seattle US

137K

#18

-36%

Source: Cirium Core, flights tracked data (passenger flights - narrowbody, widebody and regional) for Jan 1 to Dec 31, date filed Jan 1, 2021

In 2019, London Heathrow was the 9th busiest airport for flights flown. In 2020, it ranked 31st and flights operating there were down 61% versus 2019. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol was the busiest airport in Europe. Flight operations there dropped 57% in 2020 and as a result the airport sits at 27th globally.

The Cirium Airline Insights Review 2020 provides additional insights on 2020 air travel industry and includes The On-Time Performance Review 2020 by Cirium.

To read the full Cirium Airline Insights Review 2020 – click here .

Ends

Note to editors:

Data for the passenger flights flown is based on set criteria, which includes passenger flights only (including combination flights – passenger and cargo) that are scheduled and aircraft market classes of narrowbody, widebody, and regional jets. It excludes other types, such as cargo and business jet flights, as well as unscheduled flights.

For further information please visit www.cirium.com and follow Cirium updates via LinkedIn and Twitter .

About Cirium

Cirium brings together powerful data and analytics to keep the world moving. Delivering insight, built from decades of experience in the sector, enabling travel companies, aircraft manufacturers, airports, airlines and financial institutions, among others, to make logical and informed decisions which shape the future of travel, growing revenues and enhancing customer experiences. Cirium is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.

Link:

ClickThru

About Business Wire

Business Wire
Business Wire
101 California Street, 20th Floor
CA 94111 San Francisco

http://businesswire.com

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

Kinaxis Advances Large-Scale Supply Chain Optimization with NVIDIA AI16.3.2026 21:30:00 CET | Press release

Achieves up to 12X faster end-to-end planning performance in large-scale enterprise models Kinaxis® Inc. (TSX: KXS), a global leader in supply chain orchestration, today announced a new milestone in advancing large-scale supply chain optimization within the Kinaxis Maestro™ platform. Maestro already delivers high-performance optimization across complex global supply chains, and Kinaxis is now extending that leadership by leveraging GPU acceleration powered by NVIDIA cuOpt™ and NVIDIA AI infrastructure. As supply chains grow in scale and complexity, planning models must reconcile tens of millions of variables across extended time horizons and multiple planning levels. As model size expands, the number of potential decisions can scale into billions, dramatically increasing computational needs. Organizations are no longer constrained by insight alone. They are constrained by how quickly they can iterate. In testing on a large-scale semiconductor planning model with nearly 50 million decis

Lattice Joins NVIDIA Halos Ecosystem to Advance Safety for Physical AI with Holoscan Sensor Bridge16.3.2026 21:30:00 CET | Press release

Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC), the low power programmable leader, today announced it has joined the NVIDIA Halos AI Systems Inspection Lab ecosystem, the first ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) accredited inspection lab for AI-driven physical systems. Announced at the NVIDIA GTC 2026, Lattice will engage with NVIDIA and other Halos ecosystem members to build Halos-certified Holoscan Sensor Bridge-based designs for physical AI and to help shape best practices as the industry evolves. “Physical AI is rapidly moving from controlled environments into the real world, where safety, reliability, and trust are paramount,” said Raemin Wang, Vice President, Segment Marketing, Lattice Semiconductor. “Through this collaboration, Lattice looks forward to contributing our expertise in low power FPGAs and award-winning solution stacks to enable scalable, trusted physical AI systems across robotics, industrial automation, and autonomous applications.” NVIDIA Halos is a comprehensive full

Lenovo Brings Production-Scale AI to Global Sports: Enhancing Fan Experience, Driving Revenue Growth, Boosting Performance, and Improving Operational Efficiency with NVIDIA16.3.2026 21:30:00 CET | Press release

Multiyear collaboration introduces new solutions spanning Sports Intelligence, Operations, and Media & Content. At NVIDIA GTC today, Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) announced an expanded multiyear collaboration with NVIDIA to help the global sports industry deploy production-scale AI across mission-critical environments, transforming live data into revenue growth, operational resilience, and real-time decision advantage. The global sports technology market is projected to grow from $23 billion in 2025 to more than $60 billion by 2030. Global sports events represent some of the most complex and demanding operating environments in any industry, combining unprecedented scale, technical sophistication, and public visibility. These events engage billions of viewers worldwide, generate and process petabytes of data in real time, and require highly coordinated, distributed operations across multiple countries, all within a context where reliability, resilience, and uninterrupted performance a

NetApp Accelerates Momentum in AI Leadership with NVIDIA16.3.2026 21:30:00 CET | Press release

NetApp AI Data Engine is launching to address complex data challenges NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced enhancements to its enterprise-grade data platform, enabling customers to remove roadblocks to AI innovation. In addition to supporting the latest innovations from NVIDIA announced at GTC, NetApp is launching NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE)—a secure, unified AI data platform stack co-engineered with NVIDIA and integrated with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design. A foundational challenge for AI is enabling enterprises to discover, understand, and govern the data they have across their global data estates. If data is AI’s fuel, finding and using the best data is essential to making truly transformative AI. NetApp AIDE helps enterprises solve this need through an automatically created—and continuously updated—global metadata catalog with powerful search capabilities. Critically, the NetApp AIDE metadata catalog goes beyond standar

TradingHub Secures Strategic Investment From Nordic Capital to Accelerate Next Phase of Growth16.3.2026 17:00:00 CET | Press release

TradingHub, a leading provider of trade surveillance technology for global financial institutions, has agreed to partner with Nordic Capital which will become the company’s majority shareholder. The investment marks a significant milestone in TradingHub’s journey and provides strong backing to support the company’s continued growth and innovation. Existing investor Summit Partners and TradingHub’s co-founder Neil Walker will continue to hold minority positions in the company following the close of the transaction. With the support of Nordic Capital, TradingHub will accelerate its expansion across global markets while continuing to invest in the development of its trade surveillance platform. The company plans to further strengthen its capabilities across asset classes, including equities, and continue its expansion into new markets and geographies. Founded in 2010 and today operating from offices in London, Toronto, Singapore and Sydney, TradingHub has built a highly differentiated tec

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye