By Armita Shahmoradikhorrami and Lu Shiqiong

Many industries and businesses have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the hardest-hit industries in the early months of the pandemic was Airlines. This project analyses different airlines' flight data between 2019-2021 to study the effect of the pandemic among the United States airlines. As news of the virus became widespread, flights began to get canceled. This trend was most apparent during May-July, the highest vacation months peak. In this research, we compare many flights' data between 2019-2021 to understand how airlines were affected by the pandemic. Based on data in the dashboard, we can look at different parameters of those popular airports affected by the pandemic and compare them with different years.  

The dataset that contains flights schedule was collected from the bts.gov website for this research. The dashboard collects and compares the flights' data from six major airports in America: Hartsfield-Jackson International (ATL), Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Denver International Airport (DEN), O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). Targeting the flights in 2021 for this demonstration helps the research analyze how airlines recover themselves in pre-pandemic time and how they performed post-pandemic.  

Before the pandemic, the flights' numbers were at the same number level without big fluctuations. When the pandemic hit, the peak of flights dropped to 192,412, which is only 27% compared with May 2019. Among six major airports, the total number of source and destination flights followed the same patterns as the USA domestic flights, with a dramatic drop in May 2020. Later, the flights increased by July 2021 with 86% of pre-pandemic levels. We were comparing 615,703 flights with 717,684 flights operated in July 2019. We will look closely at May to compare each airport's flights data between 2019-2020. JFK in New York was the most under-hit airport during the pandemic, which only had 1,976 flights, that is only 9% of May 2020 with 21,843 before the pandemic. ORD came to the second-most under-hit airport, with about 19% of flights on schedule in May 2020 compared with May 2019. Not surprisingly, DFW in Texas had the most flights, 22,236, in May 2020, which was 41% of the flights compared with the same month before the pandemic. DEN in Colorado ranked the second for the least affected airport among six, with 35% of the flights were not stable in May 2020 compared with May 2019, pre-pandemic month.   

As for the recovery pace, DFW and DEN were back to almost the same number of flights in July 2021 compared with July 2019. This is due to the political reason that New York and California had the strictest policies to prevent the spread of COVID (Ellison, 2021). Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Denver International Airport (DEN) were affected less during the pandemic than other airports and recovered faster in 2021. The reason is that the best airlines' business model is based on extreme and efficient operations, low-cost pricing, and innovative logistics solutions. Also, both states have been the best places for people to move and visit due to better economic, weather, and political reasons than other states after May 2020. Based on the team research analysis, flights cancelation disrupts four major issues: bad weather, a labor shortage, a national air system, and security. The major issue in cancelation is the unprecedented weather in 2019 and 2021 and the failure to get security clearance. However, in 2020, the main cancelation reason for airlines was due to Covid-19 concerns mostly.