Switzerland’s air navigation service provider, Skyguide, revealed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the country’s aviation traffic in its first-half 2020 statistics released today.

During the first six months of the year, it monitored and managed 270,610 IFR flights, representing a year-over-year decline of more than 57 percent. While the agency saw an increase in flights in January and February, it noted a 47.2 percent collapse from mid-March onward. According to Skyguide, traffic reached a nadir in April, down 93 percent from the same month in 2019, but began to slowly recover in May (-91 percent) and June (-83 percent) following the lifting of some local travel restrictions and closures.

Aside from cargo flights, which were only slightly affected, business aviation traffic suffered the least erosion during the first half of the year, down by 37.8 percent, followed by the charter segment at 39.2 percent.

At major airports such as Zurich and Geneva, IFR movements were down by 56.6 percent and 50.9 percent, respectively, during the first half of the year. Skyguide noted that traffic declines at many of the country’s regional airports were less severe due to their higher percentage of unscheduled flights.