Official Statistics

Statistics relating to passenger arrivals since the COVID-19 outbreak, August 2020

Published 27 August 2020

Passenger arrivals

This release presents experimental statistics on passenger arrivals throughout 2020, including the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. More information on the data sources and limitations can be found in the ‘about the data’ section below.

The Home Office publishes data on the total number of passenger arrivals to the UK in the Immigration Statistics. However, this does not include detailed breakdowns (such as nationality, or route) for arriving passengers. The data published here is not directly comparable with the passenger arrivals data in the Immigration Statistics, as it comes from different sources and, further work is commencing shortly to further understand the quality of this new data source. However, given the clear public interest in passenger arrivals since the COVID-19 pandemic, this data is made available as a supplement to the data published in the Immigration Statistics.

Key findings

There were around 1.3 million passenger arrivals to the UK by air routes in July 2020 (API data). Although this was higher than the average for April to June 2020 during lockdown, when there were less than 200,000 air arrivals per month, the number remains substantially lower than levels seen prior to the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK and is around one-tenth (89% lower) of the figure for July 2019, when there were over 11.1 million arrivals.

Chart 1: Weekly air passenger arrivals to the UK, Jan-Jul 2019 vs Jan-Jul 2020

Source: Air passenger arrivals data tables

Notes:

1. Health measures at the border relate to a series of measures introduced that are designed to prevent new cases of Covid-19 being brought in from abroad and to prevent a second wave of the virus.
2. International travel corridors relate to countries from which passengers will not need to self-isolate when arriving in England.

Typically, around half of air passenger arrivals in the UK are British nationals (although this can fluctuate from week to week), however this rose to around two-thirds in the weeks immediately prior to and after the UK lockdown began, when air passenger arrivals began to fall. The other arrivals will include foreign nationals who are UK residents returning to the UK, non-British dependants of UK residents, and other non-British nationals including those who are working in the UK.

Chart 2: Weekly air passenger arrivals to the UK, by nationality, Jan-Jul 2020

Source: Air passenger arrivals data tables

Notes:

1. Health measures at the border relate to a series of measures introduced that are designed to prevent new cases of Covid-19 being brought in from abroad and to prevent a second wave of the virus.
2. International travel corridors relate to countries from which passengers will not need to self-isolate when arriving in England.

Table 1: Passengers arriving to the UK by air

Month	Air arrivals	% of whom British nationals	% change in total arrivals with same month in 2019
January 2020	7,082,000	41%	+1%
February 20201	6,804,900	51%	-2%
March 2020	3,815,300	58%	-51%
April 2020	112,300	56%	-99%
May 2020	139,300	36%	-99%
June 2020	194,900	34%	-98%
July 2020	1,260,400	49%	-89%

Source: Air passenger arrivals data tables

Notes

1. In order to ensure the February 2020 comparison with the previous year compares the same number of days, arrivals on the 29 February 2020 are excluded from the ‘% change with the same month in 2019’ column but are included in the total number of arrivals for that month.
2. Totals in the table may not equal the sum of individual days as provided in the accompanying air passenger arrivals data. This is due to rounding.

Additional data drawn from Border and Immigration Transactions (BITD) can be used to illustrate the proportion of arrivals through the air, sea and rail routes – although numbers of transactions will not accurately reflect the number of arrivals due to the way in which systems operate at the border.

Passengers arriving by air accounted for 87% of all passenger arrivals to the UK in March 2020, however this proportion reduced to 38% in May 2020. Since then, air passenger arrivals have increased and in July 2020, accounted for 67% of all arrivals (BITD data).

The number of arrivals across all routes (air, rail and sea) are significantly lower than the same period in 2019. However, the falls were larger in April and May around the time of lockdown in the UK (all routes had reduced by 97-99% in April) compared to more recent months. The number of air arrivals in July 2020 was 90% fewer than July 2019. Sea arrivals were 69% fewer and rail arrivals 65% fewer (BITD data).

Table 2: Percentage change in arrivals in 2020 compared with same period in 2019, by route

Month	Air arrivals	Sea arrivals	Rail arrivals
April 2020	-99%	-97%	-98%
May 2020	-99%	-81%	-89%
June 2020	-98%	-77%	-84%
July 2020	-90%	-69%	-65%

Source: BITD data

About the data

Data on passenger arrivals are derived from live operational systems; Advance Passenger Information (API), and Border and Immigration Transaction Data (BITD). These data are not designed for statistical purposes, there are known issues in producing estimates of arrivals from these sources and the data sources are not directly comparable.

API data primarily relate to passengers coming to the UK via commercial aviation routes. The data do not include those arriving by sea or rail routes, by private aircraft or via the Common Travel Area (CTA). Figures for more recent periods in particular may also be subject to revision.

BITD data relate to those coming to the UK on air, sea, and rail routes, but does not include those coming via the CTA. As the system was not designed for statistical purposes, the data should be considered indicative. Some passengers will be counted multiple times in the data where more than one interaction has occurred.

Data from March 2020 is the earliest available for reporting purposes. The impact of COVID-19 will affect March 2020 data to some degree.

Data from the API on the number of passengers arriving by air are published in the accompanying air passenger arrivals data tables.