Over 100,000 Ghost Flights Roam EU Skies

UK airlines are usually required to use their airport slots for a minimum of 80% of the time, however, the industry paused this regulation during the pandemic due to the various travel restrictions imposed so airlines could remain competitive.

When this was resumed, airlines were forced to proceed with empty legs. To put that into local context, in the last year alone Heathrow Airport went from having 76 million passengers departing from their gates to just 19.4 million in 2021, however, the number of flights departing from the airport did not reflect this change.

New UK data covering the pandemic period finds that even though the restrictions requiring the utilisation of 80% of slots were fully suspended, they went ahead operating nearly 14,472 ghost flights between 2020 and 2021.

Although the government has extended alleviation of airport slots usage rules with adjusted ratio of 70:30 for the summer 2022 season, it is likely there will still be a high amount of ghost flights.

According to aviation experts TailHail – a private jet hailing app – while global commercial travel has diminished 52% since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a remarkable consumer shift towards the use of private aviation. Worldwide, the number of private jet flights has increased by 16% compared to pre-pandemic levels, whilst the number of flights in 2021 represented a further 54% increase on those seen in 2020. Empty legs and repositioning flights are an issue across the whole aviation industry, including the private jet sector. However, since most private flight information is manually reported and decentralised, it is very difficult to pinpoint the specific metrics in the industry. TailHail is redressing these issues with their proprietary technology that will allow passengers the accessibility to empty legs as there has never been before with real-time private jet availability, ensuring that resource wastage is reduced in the industry.