Overall, just under half a million (466,897) flights are scheduled* to be in the skies worldwide during the peak period at Christmas of 21st-25th.
New study and map by Buyagift reveals every worldwide flight scheduled to be in the sky this Christmas. Between 21-25th December this year, around 69,330,024 people around the world will be taking to the skies, heading home to their families in time for Christmas Day. Among them are nurses, soldiers, family and friends and businesspeople flying thousands of miles to spend the holidays with their loved ones.
To show you what this looks like, experts at Buyagift have gathered the details of all 466,897 scheduled flights from 3,654 airports around the world and mapped this out across a 5-day animated time-lapse.*
This is what the festive air travel schedule will look like
The data
Overall, just under half a million (466,897) flights are scheduled* to be in the skies worldwide during the peak period at Christmas of 21st-25th. These flights will be carrying a whopping 70 million people taking them home to their families for the most wonderful time of the year.
When breaking this down by dates, the eve of Christmas Eve is the busiest day with 99,948 flights transporting 15,000,927 passengers worldwide. Christmas Eve see’s 13.7 million travelling in the sky and even Christmas Day is almost as hectic.
Top 20 busiest airports to avoid at Christmas (by passenger arrivals/depatures)
Beijing International tops the list as the worlds busiest city at Christmas with 843,734 people flying into the airport between 21st-25th December and 844,657 departing.
This is then Dubai and Atlanta
London Heathrow is the UK’s busiest airport, and 11th on the world busiest list.
Despite more planes flying into California International – more people are heading in and out of Beijing making it the most hectic airport to be stuck at this festive period.
UK flight data – 1.8 million Britons flying home to British soil for Christmas
The UK is the 8th busiest country according to worldwide Christmas flight data.
10,888 flights to the UK are scheduled between the dates of 21st-25th December taking a total 1,825,728 people home to British soil in time for Christmas.
8,163 of these will be international arrivals predominately coming from Spain, the USA and Germany.
It’s a similar story for UK departures, with a total of 8,269 flights leaving the country to spend Christmas somewhere else in the world.
The below table shows the top 10 countries for UK flight arrivals:
USA busiest country at Christmas
Everything is bigger and better in the US, and festive period is no different. During the 5 days before Christmas, no less than 118,844 flights will be arriving across the country – over 10 times that of the UK.
Altogether, 14.5 million people will be heading to the US in time for Christmas. The majority of these flights however are domestic with 107,449 currently scheduled internally. Despite this, 11,395 flights will be arriving from overseas.
Looking at it state by state, the skies above the expansive California will be busiest, with 13,265 bringing 1,957,168 home for Christmas. Sunshine state Florida comes a close second, with 11,082 flights carrying 1,720,064 passengers. Texas comes third with 11,484 flight arrivals, followed by New York with 6,380.
The top 10 busiest US states for arrivals at Christmas
Why have we have done this?
Dan Mountain, CEO at Buyagift said “We understand giving loved ones something special at Christmas is an essential part of the festive season but spending time with our nearest and dearest is priceless.’’
"We wanted to visualise just how important this is around the world, showing just what the sky will look like 5 days head of Christmas as everyone heads home to be with their loved ones for the most magical time of the year."
Sources:
*Schedules Data – OAG accurate as of October 2018. Flight data may be subject to change after this date. www.oag.com based on 3,654 airports around the world.
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
