Incredible satellite photos show parked planes sitting on runways at airports in the US and Europe, as COVID-19 puts a near stop to global air travel
Between shelter-in-place orders, border closures, travel bans, and social distancing advisories, demand for air travel has also plummeted, leading airlines to suspend routes, cancel flights, ground huge portions of their fleets, and give early retirements to older planes. As airlines continue to cut both long-haul and short-haul flying, in some cases reducing their capacity 70-80% for April, they're running out of places to store their grounded planes.
But for planes that are just temporarily grounded, boneyards aren't always an option. These aircraft require regular maintenance and inspections, even when grounded, in order to stay in flightworthy shape. To that end, some airlines are storing more planes at airports. With fewer flights taking off, airports aren't necessarily using as many runways or taxiways as they normally would be, meaning airlines can store their active, but grounded, fleets there.
Maxar Technologies, a satellite communications and imaging company, released new satellite images of three airports in Europe and the US where planes are being stored. The photos reveal collections of planes large and small that sit idle as the travel industry waits to return to normal.At Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, planes are parked along many taxiways.
The planes — both long-haul wide-bodies, and short-haul narrow-bodies, belong to SAS, or Scandinavian Airlines. SAS has temporarily laid off 90% of its staff — or 10,000 workers — and halted most of its flights.Mobile Regional Airport in Alabama has also turned into a storage facility. In addition to planes parked at terminal buildings and hangers, a row of what appear to be widebody jets are parked along runway 18/36.
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