Airlines Hit in the Pocket by Coronavirus

The New York Times has created an impressive side-by-side animated map comparison which visualizes the huge drop in both domestic and international flights over China since the outbreak of coronavirus. In response to last month's outbreak of the virus airlines have canceled more than 200,000 flights - both domestically, within the country, and internationally, to & from China.

In 13,000 Missing Flights the NYT visualizes the scale of this reduction in air traffic by animating a day's flights over China on January 22nd (before the outbreak) and a day's flights on February 13th (after the outbreak). The NYT article goes on to show how flights have not only dropped significantly within China but also internationally as air travel from China has dropped to other Asian countries and to Europe & the USA.

The NYT says that Chinese tourists account for 20% of the world's tourism spending, more than any other country in the world. It argues that the loss of this spending will have an economic effect on many countries across the globe. The drop in air traffic will also obviously have an effect on airlines. The International Air Transport Association says that loss of air traffic could translate into a $27.8 billion revenue drop for airlines in 2020.