As the aviation industry continues to find its way in the wake of COVID-19, we saw a resurgence in total flight activity in May, driven mostly by non-commercial flights. In May, Flightradar24 tracked more than 100,000 total daily flights for the first time since the end of March. Commercial flight activity continues to climb from its mid-April lows, but is growing at a much slower rate.
Total flights down 52% in May, compared to 2019
The total number of flights tracked in May 2020 was down 52% from May 2019. In April, total flights were 62% below 2019. The increase in total flights is due mostly to non-commercial flight activity. Commercial flight activity increased slightly in May down just 70.8% from 2019, compared to 73.7% in April.
View daily tracking statistics for total and commercial flights
The busiest day in May for total flights was 21 May with 121,065 flights tracked. That’s well below the 188,400 flights tracked on 21 May 2019.
Commercial flights down 70.8% in May, compared to 2019
Commercial traffic continued its slow recovery in May, though we expect that pace to increase in June as additional airlines restart more of the operations.
![An example full flight summary response from the Flightradar24 API: { "data": [ { "fr24_id": "0987654321", "flight": "SK1415", "callsign": "SAS1415", "operated_as": "SAS", "painted_as": "SAS", "type": "A20N", "reg": "SE-DOY", "orig_icao": "ESSA", "orig_iata": "ARN", "datetime_takeoff": "2023-01-27T05:15:22", "runway_takeoff": "12R", "dest_icao": "EKCH", "dest_iata": "CPH", "dest_icao_actual": "EPWA", "dest_iata_actual": "WAW", "datetime_landed": "2023-01-27T06:15:10", "runway_landed": "27L", "flight_time": 3600, "actual_distance": 1007.74, "circle_distance": 6245, "category": "Passenger", "hex": "4A91F9", "first_seen": "2023-01-27T05:06:22", "last_seen": "2023-01-27T06:18:10", "flight_ended": "true" } ] }](https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Flight-summary-API-cover-300x148.jpg)
