Posted on 05/13/2021 8:36:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Many of us AvGeeks are tracking the progress of the passenger counts supplied by the Transportation Security Administration during the COVID pandemic. Avid numbers geeks also know that raw data should always be converted to associated cool charts.
The first chart below displays the raw data. Because the TSA lists the most current day first, the chart reconstructs a chronological visualization for the same time periods January – December.
Well aren’t those some squiggly lines? Because these are daily points, the lines show large amplitudes that correlate to high traffic (Fridays) and low traffic (Tuesdays). Let’s smooth out the lines using a rolling 7 day average to provide a better picture.
Deriving Some Encouraging Conclusions
The 7 day chart shows some interesting facts. The first part of 2020 on a rolling average basis, had approximately 5% increase in traffic over 2019 (grey line). The precipitous drop from February to April highlights the extent to which passenger traffic decreased. One could follow the 2020 line from right and then see the 2021 line in Blue to left as a continuation. Although 2021 began at less than 50 percent traffic compared to 2020, passenger counts have rapidly increased since January 2021.
Playing the Percentages
Speaking of percentages, the chart below indicates the raw percentage differences and a smoothed 7 day average. Note that there are only 2 lines – the orange line is the difference between 2019 and 2020. The blue 2021 line shows the difference between 2019 and 2021.
A What-If Scenario
When trying to identify when normalcy will return, Here’s a “what if” scenario: What if passenger traffic grew by 5% year over year from 2019 to 2020 through 2021?
What would be the point in identifying where passenger traffic might be at 5% growth? That answer rests in the below graph that shows the approximate “lost passenger counts” due to pandemic.
Some Bad/Good News
In just over a year, roughly 600,000,000 passengers did not travel. But if the 2021 pace of passenger counts continues, by August we could surpass 2019. That would be great news for the aviation industry.
Not me until the face diaper mandate is removed. I’ve earned to live without flying. I have my RV for vacations. And I’ll drive my regular vehicle for anything else. And I don’t need to go overseas any longer.
This couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Chairman Xiden flying ILLEGAL INVADERS all over the country, would it?
May the rest of humanity enjoy traveling by air.
I live under the main international flight path out of JFK. I’ve been noticing more and more planes in the sky lately passing overhead on their way to Asia and Europe Last summer, that traffic was way, way down.
Our family traveled by air this past weekend. One of our daughters, graduated from college. First time our whole family had been able to see each other in 18 months. It was such a blessing. Flights were full, people were considerate and flights were smooth and on time. Airports were busy with people reconnecting with family. Good for both families and the economy.
My next door neighbor is a pilot for AA. He says the Denver airport looks like it’s back to normal traffic.
With inflation at 10% (and rapidly going higher) people will be cutting back on discretionary travel. With businesses learning how much work can be done without travel, they will be cutting back on travel.
So, will travel rebound?
I flew a short two hour flight on Southwest last night. You had to wear a mask unless you were “actively eating.” I “actively ate” the sandwich I brought on board and two bags of snacks for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. They key is small bites, thoroughly chew your food, and go slowly. Nobody accused me of not being “active” enough in my eating.
The aircraft was a spanking new 737 Max 8 and I survived! It was very quiet and comfortable. The big annoyance was the multicolor LED cabin lighting because they’d turn from orange, to blue, to red, to white and then repeat. It reminded me of an old saying “Just because you CAN do something g doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.” Everybody has seen LEDs change color by now. What’s the big deal with showing that useless “feature” off?
Business travel will never come back completely due to the cost savings of doing things virtually. Also they get carbon credits for not flying. Essential travel will eventually resume, as well as vacation travel. But with escalating energy prices, new Covid variants that are vaccine resistant, and a pending recession the airline industry may take 3-6 years to fully recover back to 2019 levels even for recreational travel.
Just a quick correction. Variants are not vaccine resistant so far, studies show that the pfizer vaccine protects well against all currently known variants.
So, why are people so enthusiastic to return to traveling on flying cattle cars?
I have family members who flew all during the pandemic.....all for vacations. Loved it...planes virtually empty.
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Ditto.
That’s a good assessment. I would add inflation fears. Of course, people are often inclined during high inflation to spend the money now rather than wait and spend it later when prices are higher.
I flew from BWI last week. Full plane - even the middle seats.
A lot of stuff on the Indian variant is being kept hush hush right now as to stop “vaccine hesitancy”. Also Pfizer and Moderna are rushing to complete their boosters against this variant (and others), and hope to have it approved EUA by June or July, and to start administering it soon after. Finally they don’t want an economic firestorm to happen.
Back in 2012 I worked for a British owned company with international locations across the globe. The US division I worked for was based in PA but had a shipping and sales office in the UK. I was the payroll manager and did the payroll for the UK location as well as for our PA and NC locations.
Around this time the UK made major changes to their pension schemes, basically moving toward privatizing them, somewhat like our 401ks.
I was on several conference calls and virtual meetings with corporate and all the PR teams of all the UK locations on the changes and the new pension implementation. And it was a disaster.
First of all, aside from the tech glitches of which there were many, our corporate HQ was based in Yorkshire and our pension scheme administrators were out of Edinburgh Scotland.
It was funny as the Yorkshire folks on the conference calls and virtual meetings had trouble with the Scot’s accents and visa versa and I could barely understand any of them. I was embarrassed to keep asking “can you repeat that” and they seemed to think I was the one who had the funny accent.
I was on an 8 hour long virtual meeting, UK time which meant I had to log in from home at around 2AM local time. I got very little from the meeting as while I could see the Power Points, I couldn’t understand much of what was being said.
I had a call with our HQ HR manager, a genuinely nice lady and expressed my frustration, one of which was my division didn’t want to spend the money to send me to the UK for any of the meetings.
She pushed to have and got approval for my division to send me to the UK to Hull, for the final implementation meeting and what a difference it was to meet in person.
I still had some trouble understanding them and they me at times, but it was so much better and more productive to meet in person. We even joked about our accents, with more than one asking me if I was from Texas because evidently many Brits and Scots love western movies and think if you are not from NYC or Los Angeles, then you must be from Texas.
I also made some connections with my PR peers in the UK who could help me with questions I had re: UK PR and HR, something I couldn’t do via virtual meetings.
While virtual meetings have their place, nothing can IMO replace face to face meetings.
While I was there, I also got to take an afternoon off and explore the city of Hull and fell in love with it. So many great and free museums and so much history and amazingly nice and friendly people.
I was planning pre-pandemic, last Fall to go on vacation to York UK as I am interested in British-Romano, Viking and medieval history and York has it all, with a day trip back to Hull and to Edinburgh. I’m hoping I can do that next year.
I suspect that gasoline will be $5-$6/Gallon (higher on the West Coast and in large urban areas), with shortages and rationing. We could approach $8/gallon if a hurricane approaches the GOM this summer/fall. If you have an essential letter from the pandemic keep it as you may need it to buy gasoline later this year. Middle east instability will also play a major role in skyrocketing gas prices. We may see $10/gallon in some areas.
This will also affect the airline industry, with much higher ticket prices.
Great, and when the next foreign virus weapon is concocted, the airlines once again will bring it right to our front doors.
Back in end of March, there was a huge rental car shortage here in Phoenix.
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