Europe air traffic reaches 50% of 2019 as recovery continues

The recovery in Europe’s air traffic has hit a new milestone as people take to the skies again for summer vacations. Aside from a brief pickup around Christmas, Europe’s air traffic is at its highest compared with pre-Covid levels since March last year, when the continent’s lockdowns really began to affect demand. On Sunday it rose just above 50% of 2019 levels based on a seven-day moving average, data from Eurocontrol show. The revival offers some hope to the continent’s airlines, but also its oil refiners who’ve seen demand for aviation fuel collapse. The pandemic-driven slump in flying saw them divert production of normally valuable jet fuel into other oil products, like diesel and naphtha. Jet fuel’s price differential to diesel -- an important metric for traders -- has been slowly recovering from the lows of 2020. In April, consumption of jet fuel and kerosene in OECD Europe was 690,000 barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s an increase of 74% compared with a year earlier. Europe’s air traffic has generally been on an upward trend since about mid-May, according to data from Eurocontrol. There could also be an influx of tourists from America in the coming months, with the EU lifting travel restrictions for US residents.<br/>