Impact of coronavirus ( COVID ‐19) pandemic on air transport mobility, energy, and environment: A case study

Abstract

Summary The recent pandemic caused by COVID‐19 has globally affected air transport mobility as well as the airline industry in general. Numerous restrictions have been implemented in airline transport, which is potentially leading toward severe long‐term impacts on the global airline industry. In this paper, air transport mobility was analyzed regarding Europe (EU) based on the available data from the relevant sources associated with the airline industry. Data were analyzed in specific periods from January to April of 2020, which corresponded with the initialization of the pandemic in the EU and later in its full development. Specifically, two airports were selected in Croatia as case studies to analyze the impact of COVID‐19 more thoroughly on mobility together with the estimation of carbon footprint during the pandemic and the year before the pandemic state. The results revealed that COVID‐19 gradually affected air transport mobility in the EU where a peak was reached in April with a reduction in the number of flights in the EU region reaching more than 89%. Cargo traffic was not significantly affected by the pandemic, and was even increased in some cases due to the supply of medical equipment in the fight against the disease. The analyzed case study revealed the reduction in air transport mobility for selected airports to be more than 96%, which directly affected the reduction of CO2 emissions to factor 1.81 for the commercial airport of Zagreb and 3.49 for the seasonal airport of Split. A normalization of air transport mobility is expected to be reached through a 1‐year period with a continued reduction in the number of flights ranging from 15% to 25%, based on the projections and expectations from relevant EU associations.

Global plastic waste management strategies (Technical and behavioral) during and after COVID-19 pandemic for cleaner global urban life

“…Thus, there is an equal threat of another global disaster led by an unhinged increase of plastic used during and after COVID-19, due to the fundamental shift in the lifestyle of humans -leading to our planet a heap of garbage (Klemeš et al 2020). The enormous amounts of plastics, being generated by COVID-19, practically raise definite sustainability concerns (Nižetić 2020). This article discusses the possible plastic waste-related sustainability concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the actionable recommendations.…”

Impacts of the global pandemic on the aviation industry of the European Union

“…Aviation is a major consumer of energy and producer of exhaust fumes. The reduction of air traffic is thus clearly reflected in the reduction of the carbon footprint, the reduction of energy intensity, which is fully correlated with the principles of environmental sustainability [22,25]. The paper was financed from the project Development of R&D Capacities of the Silesian University in Opava CZ.…”

“…Consumer behaviour is reflected in the development of air transport. It is assumed that air transport will not resume until the following year 2021, from which the prediction of Figure 2 corresponds, but will be 15-25 % below the maximum of 2019 [22]. A certain confidence in flying could be supported by the hypothesis of minimal possibilities of infection in the aircraft [23,24].…”

Statistical Characterization of Airplane Delays

“…1 for all Heathrow delays. There, we compare the data collected from 2018 to 2019 with more recent data collected during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic (during the first lockdown in Spring to Summer 2020), which led to a drastic reduction in air transport [17,18]. There are two interesting observations: Firstly, the delay statistics under COVID-19 are shifted to the left, indicating overall smaller delays (including more negative delays); secondly, the general shape of the distribution does not change drastically.…”