Exploring the co‐movements between COVID‐19 pandemic and international air traffic: A global perspective based on wavelet analysis

Abstract

The travel and tourism industry was one of the fastest‐growing industries before the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, to avoid COVID‐19 spread, the government authorities imposed strict lockdown and international border restrictions except for some emergency international flights that badly hit the travel and tourism industry. The study explores the nexus between international air departures and the COVID‐19 pandemic in this strain. We use a novel wavelet coherence approach to dissect the lead and lag relationships between international flight departures and COVID‐19 deaths from January 2020 to September 2020 (COVID‐19 first wave period). The results reveal that international flights cause the spread of COVID‐19 spread during May 2020 to June 2020 worldwide. The overall findings suggest asymmetries between daily international flight departures and COVID‐19 deaths globally at different time‐frequency periods due to uncertainty surrounding the COVID‐19 pandemic. The study will be conducive for the policymakers to control the upsurge of COVID‐19 spread worldwide.

Air transportation under COVID-19 pandemic restrictions: A wavelet analysis

“…Additionally, they claim that international flights spread the COVID-19 virus worldwide from May 2020 to mid-June 2020, at 4–8 days band of scale. According to Fareed et al (2022) , their results are in line with those of Yang et al (2020) and Zhang et al (2020) . For example, Yang et al (2020) find that COVID-19 is transmitted in aeroplanes but with mild symptoms, while Zhang et al (2020) conclude that the number of COVID-19 cases in the destination Chinese cities is positively correlated with air flights and high-speed train services out of Wuhan.…”

“…private flights, gliders, most helicopter flights, most ambulance flights, government flights, some military flights, and drones). It is noteworthy that the measure comprehensively captures the magnitude of all air transportation activities by considering both passenger and non-passenger traffic ( Fareed et al, 2022 ). The dataset is freely available in Eurocontrol online database.…”

“…Only one paper seems to analyse the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and international air traffic in a two-way approach by using wavelet methodology. More precisely, Fareed et al (2022) employ the continuous wavelet transform and wavelet coherence methods in a global study over the period from January 2020 to September 2020. Observing the co-movement between only two variables, the authors find evidence of intensive interaction between COVID-19 and international air travel from January 2020 to September 2020, at 32–64 days band of scale.…”

“…First, a scarcity of papers that simultaneously explore both directions of co-movement between the COVID-19 outbreak and air transportation is observed, at the Eurocontrol level, in a nonlinear fashion. Out of them, only Fareed et al (2022) are found treating the link from time-frequency domain perspectives, but singularly considering wavelet coherence tool at the global level. Almost all contributions consider a linear connection supported by classical time-series regressions.…”

“…Fourth, the study supports the consideration of a new methodology in the field by wavelet type. Only the paper of Fareed et al (2022) globally explores the interaction between the COVID-19 pandemic and air transportation by using wavelet methodologies (i.e. continuous wavelet transformation and wavelet coherence) over the period from January 2020 to September 2020.…”