new delhi coronavirus has pushed back global air traffic by over two decades to the last millennium global passenger traffic was down by about 67 in pandemic 2020 compared to 2019 and was reduced to 1999 levels according to leading aviation analytics company cirium the pandemic and its consequences wiped out 21 years of global passenger traffic growth in a matter of months reducing traffic this year to levels last seen in 1999 at the peak of the disruption in april scheduled passenger flights dropped significantly to just 13600 globally on april 25 compared to the years busiest day on january 3 when cirium tracked over 95000 scheduled passenger flights globally this marks an extraordinary 86 reduction in flights from january to december airlines operated 49 fewer flights in 2020 compared to 2019 down from 33 crore flights to just 16 crore to december 20 cirium said in a statementwhile domestic travel globally was down 40 this year from 21 crore flights in 2019 international flights suffered an even more precipitous drop of 68 below the 11 crore flights tracked the year beforecirium ceo jeremy bowen said this severe setback shows the true extent of the challenge faced by the struggling aviation sector as it has sought to reset itself in the new post covid19 eramajority of the scheduled passenger flights flown globally in 2020 were domestic at 13 crore flights 77 and only 38 lakh flights 23 were internationally due to closed borders it saidaccording to cirium data analysis southwest airlines operated the most flights globally and in north america with 85 lakh flights in total china southern airlines 48 lakh flights topped the tables in the asiapacific ryanair in europe 205 lakh flights azul in latin america 13 lakh flights and qatar airways 82400 flights in the middle east and africa atlanta was the worlds busiest airport handling over 245000 arriving flights during 2020forward planning for airlines has dramatically contracted from six to 12months for flight scheduling to just six to eightweeks forcing carriers to be nimbler and adapt with greater speed to the rapidly changing rules and travel restrictions around the world cirium statement saidairlines have parked a large number of their aircraft due to severe reduction n air travel and the ones still flying are doing so for much time than earlierfor example narrowbody aircraft operated just six to seven hours a day in q3 2020 compared to nine to 10 hours a day in the same period last year while up to 30 of the global passenger fleet remains in storage there are signs of recovery on the horizon with only 10 of shorthaul airbus a320neo aircraft currently in storage showing narrow body aircraft leading the recovery and domestic and shorthaul travel returning first with domestic and shorthaul services ruling the day the worlds most used aircraft type was the airbus a320 with cirium tracking about 55 lakh flights throughout 2020 cirium statement said