Type: Project Other Data - June 29, 2022, 1:46 p.m.
Whereas the analyses of air transport flows in other parts of the ESPON IRiE project considers "normal" interregional relationships reflected in yearly data for the past decade, this case study report sheds light on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on air transport with a much high-er temporal resolution. The detailed air passenger and freight database of Eurostat allows a relatively timely analysis. By the beginning of 2022, there was - with a few exceptions - already monthly air passenger and freight flow data available at the level of airports that reach until the summer of the year 2021, i.e. cover about the first year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic. This monthly data coverage was sufficient to analyse the effects of the lockdowns and the recovery processes in temporal and spatial detail, so as to reflect the rapidly changing devel-opment of the pandemic and its related policies.
The analysis looked in monthly and spatial detail at the period from January 2019 to the last month in spring/summer 2021 for which air flow data is available. This period of two years and some months covers at least three main phases: (1) the pre-COVID-19 "normal” in 2019, (2) the emergence of the pandemic and the first lockdown phase in first half of the year 2020, and (3) the "new normal" — life with the pandemic as a sequence of easing and renewed lockdown periods. This allows, first, to assess the degree to which the first lockdown affected air transport (passenger and freight) between regions in Europe. And, secondly, it allows to ana-lyse from an air flow perspective the different paths taken in different parts of Europe during the further periods up to potential recoveries.
The novelty of this case study with respect to other treatments of air transport in COVID-19 times is that not only the total volumes of air transport in Europe, European countries, and single airports are looked at, but that also the spatial interaction between European regions was put into focus. To do so, the spatial and temporal dynamics of Europe’s interregional relation-ships by air was related to the context of the COVID-19 pandemic’s temporal development, lockdowns, travel warnings and bans, and other restrictions as well as the gradual opening of countries and regions to air transport. The analysis shows which interregional relationships have been hit hardest, which took longest to recover, and which did not recover at all — in other words, which interregional flows in Europe are robust and which are less.
A specific part of the case study deals with the relationship of remote regions, such as the European outermost regions as well as Iceland, and the European mainland. Besides maritime transport for goods, the physical linkages between Europe and its outermost regions depend solely on air transport. This section of the case study will analyse the degree the pandemic has threaten the "normal" relationship in detail.
Keywords
Air passenger transport, air freight transport, air transport impacts of COVID-19 pandemic