Cirium reveals the world’s busiest day for flying in 2019 is today

More than 17 million passengers are predicted to take to the skies on over 115,500 flights around the world within a single 24-hour period.

The mammoth global forecast from Cirium comes as global passenger traffic continues to grow year on year, with 2019 set to be one of the busiest years for air travel on record.

Jeremy Bowen, chief executive officer at Cirium, said: “Our data shows that the July to August season for global travellers is set to be busier than ever in 2019, with an estimated 17 million passengers flying on 9 August alone, making it the busiest day worldwide for flying this year.

“Airlines are increasingly looking to insights from data to effectively plan ahead. At Cirium, our data experts keep a close eye on passenger schedules and market trends, meaning we’re perfectly positioned to help our airline customers anticipate potential disruption and unlock consumer insights that improve the traveller experience”. 

During July and August almost seven million flights are scheduled to depart worldwide, with approximately a billion travellers packing their bags for leisure and business trips. 

The busiest airlines around the world during these two summer months are the big US carriers American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines as well as Irish budget airline Ryanair, carrying approximately 192 million passengers between them.

Meanwhile the busiest airports are set to be Beijing, Atlanta, Dubai, Los Angeles and Tokyo-Haneda, with more than 51 million travellers predicted to transit through these five alone. Cirium has also forecast that August 23 is set to be the busiest day of the year for flights from the UK.

Nearly half a million UK travellers will jet off on the Friday before the late August bank holiday weekend, with a total of just over 2,600 flights scheduled to depart that day alone.

EasyJet is set to fly up to 105,000 customers on 614 flights from the UK on domestic and European routes.

Meanwhile, British Airways is expected to carry up to 102,000 customers the same day on 583 long and short-haul flights, with up to 352 flights departing from its Heathrow hub.

Passenger numbers are based on maximum capacity of available scheduled aircraft as passenger loads are usually at their highest levels during peak travel seasons, such as the summer months.

Cirium analyses more than 70 million passenger journeys annually to provide meaningful insights and keep the travel industry in motion.

This data is used by a wide range of customers, such as airlines and airports, to improve the travel experience through smart devices and metasearch engines, like Google, Amazon and Expedia, to provide information directly to passengers, enabling them to make more informed choices to when on the move. 

Cirium’s data and analytics divisions have been the first to bring innovative solutions to market, such as the first to automate the ticket waiver process during times of flight delays and cancellations.

It employs over 400 technology experts, analysts, data scientists and market experts in the US, UK, Europe, Middle East, India and Asia-Pacific.

The group has significantly grown in recent years with the acquisition of leading data intelligence companies, including Ascend, Innovata, Diio and FlightStats.