More passenger seats are available on half-term flights out of the UK than before the pandemic

Departures are still down but the number of available seats on flights have increased since before the pandemic

There are more seats available to passengers than there was before the pandemic, new data reveals (Getty Images)

British families who are looking to jet off this half term may have found that there is more availability on flights than there was before the pandemic.

The aviation industry took a huge hit in 2020 and the years that followed when the Covid-19 pandemic struck the UK and most of the world, causing thousands of flights to be grounded, holidays cancelled and the number of passengers rapidly declining.

However, airlines have slowly recovered since this giant knockback, after full flight itineraries were eventually able to resume and a population who had just endured lockdown were eager to book trips away.

Yet, new data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company,  has revealed that plane seat availability in the UK has more than recovered from the pandemic after the number of available seats on planes has increased.

During the October half term in 2024, which is roughly around 25 October to 3 November for many schools, there are 27,194 flights scheduled to depart from UK airports.

This equates to over 4.9 million seats, which is up by five per cent in comparison to the October half term in 2019, which landed on the exact same dates and only saw 4.6 million seats leave UK airports.

Cirium said that this will somewhat be due to airlines introducing larger aircraft to its fleet of flights departing from the UK.

While the UK’s busiest airport Heathrow has plans to build a third runway to keep up with departure and arrival demands, but in the meantime the airport’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye said that bigger planes would be introduced to increase capacity.

During the October half term in 2019, each flight from the UK had an average of 165.5 seats, but the data shows that for half term 2024, this had risen to an average of 180.8 seats per flight.

The aviation industry has seen flight numbers almost reaching pre-pandemic levels, yet the data suggests that flights still remain four per cent down compared to the half term in 2019, when there were 28,351 departing flights from the UK.

Comparing flight levels to the October half term in 2023, departures are also down by three per cent, with Cirium explaining that the post-pandemic surge in demand for a long-awaited getaway has plateaued now more time has passed since the Covid-19 outbreak.

Nevertheless, the larger plane capacities and more seats do mean that there is a greater chance that passenger numbers will be high, with Cirium revealing that Friday (25 October) is set to be the busiest day for departures as many UK families will head to the airports for a sunny break in the half term on the over 3,000 flights departing from the country on Friday.

Many UK families have booked Spanish coastal holidays such as Alicante (574 flights) and Malaga (524 flights), to soak up a final bit of sun before returning to the UK winter weather.

Yet, the other most popular destinations have also included Amsterdam, (1,041 flights) Dublin (1,027 flights) and Paris (528 flights), showing that some are using the half term to do a bit of sightseeing on a city break.

In terms of airlines, easyJet is projected to be the airline most used during half term and the largest number of departures of all airlines will fly out of Heathrow Airport near London, with 6,483 flights.

Heathrow has recently revealed that they expect to handle a record-breaking 83.8 million passengers in 2024 – an average of 230,000 per day and made £1.3m per day in profits before tax in the first nine months of 2024.

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