Amid Omicron scare, air travel in & out of UK slumps by 71% during 2021: Report

In a setback for the UK, air travel for the second consecutive year has recorded a steep slump, and this year it went down to 71%. According to The Guardian, only 406,060 flights in and out of the UK operated this year, which is lower than 2019's data where flight operations were nearly 1.4 million before the pandemic arrived. Due to travel restrictions, domestic flight service in the UK also came down by nearly 60%, said aviation analytics firm Cirium. Budget airline Ryanair recorded the highest number of flights in the UK, with over 1 lakh UK flights in 2021, followed by easyJet with more than 82,000 flights.

Due to COVID-19 testing and isolation requirements, the international flight service remained largely affected for the second year. The report reveals that the busiest international route was between London’s Heathrow and New York’s JFK. The US opened the flight international flight service in November, this year. However, travellers from the US have been able to fly to the UK since 28 July. The busiest domestic route in the UK remained the flight between Land’s End in Cornwall and St Mary’s on the Isles of Scilly.

Due to rising cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the future of air travel for next year remains uncertain. As per media reports, thousands of flights have been cancelled over the past few days. In the past 24 hours, more than 2000 flights have been cancelled globally, and another 3000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday, including incoming and outgoing flights to the US, reported The Guardian, citing the flight-tracking website FlightAware. It was found that more than 6000 flights were cancelled between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day.

COVID-19 Situation in the UK

COVID-19 cases in Britain are on the surge. The country reported a total of 183,037 fresh COVID cases in the last 24 hours, 50,000 more than the previous day's tally. A total of 57 COVID patients were reported dead on Wednesday. As per health ministry data, the tally of total COVID-19 cases and fatalities stands at 12,559,926 and 148,089, respectively. The country has also witnessed a steep surge in hospitalisations in recent weeks owing to the new variant. The government has urged people to get vaccinated against the virus and follow COVID-19 measures for safety.

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