COVID Traffic

Gratuitous picture of an airplane with cute marine mammals on the side

Now that I have your attention, let's talk numbers. Last time, I mentioned that LAX's traffic, as measured by aircraft movements, is down to a bit less than half of what it would normally be at this time of year. While this information is freely available via public sources, let me share with you our informal in-house traffic count calendar. I'll start with what a normal July looks like at LAX, in this case last summer:

LAX traffic count July 2019

As you can see, we were averaging around 2000 operations per day. Saturdays are generally our slowest day of the week; our busiest tends to be either Thursday or Friday. Now, take a look at what's been happening this summer:

LAX traffic count July 2020

It hasn't been this way the whole year; we started out with a normal looking January:

LAX traffic count January 2020

I don't have complete data for February, but what I did see had nothing out of the ordinary. March started out the same way, but while that month normally sees traffic build for spring break, this year it did exactly the opposite as the COVID "stay at home" orders and travel restrictions took effect:

LAX traffic count March 2020

In my March 27 post, written after I left work around ten that evening, I speculated that we were about to have our first day of less than one thousand operations. As it so happened, the last Thursday in March was the last time that LAX ran more than one thousand ops in a day; we've been in triple digits ever since. The flight cancellations that began in March really got serious in April and May:

LAX traffic count April 2020

LAX traffic count May 2020

Our slowest day of the the year has been Monday, April 20, with a whopping 405 operations for the entire day. That's not much busier than my very first facility in Monroe, Louisiana! After that nadir, traffic levels increased somewhat as we worked our way through June:

LAX traffic count June 2020

Just for the sake of comparison, here's the count for June of a year ago:

LAX traffic count June 2019

In early June, we were told that the airlines were expecting to ramp up their schedules for July, and that we should be prepared to see around 1,400 operations per day. Preparations were made to bring more controllers in so that more positions could be opened. But, as you can see above, we peaked (so far) in mid-July at 956 ops for the day on Friday the 17th. As I write this in early August, we still have yet to attain the 1000 level again.

Last minute update: Just before posting, I called to verify our numbers. Our new peak of 974 was reached last Friday, the 7th. Not yet back up to a thousand, but we're getting there!

Summer of COVID

Wow, it's been a long time. Let's see if I remember how to do this . . .

Welcome to the dog days of summer - at least, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, that is. I'm almost afraid to say anything for fear of jinxing it, but thus far, we've been blessed with a very mild summer here in Los Angeles. To be fair, we tend to get our hottest weather in September, so we have that to look forward to. By pretty much any measure, the summer of 2020 is an odd one. Much of the rest of the world has figured out how to deal with the COVID-19 virus, but the United States has gone off in our own direction. I won't get any deeper into it than that, except to say that air traffic (as measured by aircraft movements) at LAX is about half of what it normally would be. If you look at passenger statistics, we're down by way more than half. I don't know what the current statistic is, but at one point passenger volume was down by ninety-something percent from last year's level.

We have seen an upswing in cargo operations, including passenger aircraft that have been repurposed to carry freight. There has also been a rise in the number of general aviation aircraft passing through LAX. After the traffic count numbers plummeted, Los Angeles World Airports (aka LAWA), who is the authority that operates LAX, relaxed the restriction on small aircraft landing and then departing again at LAX. Normally, any aircraft that lands at LAX is expected to go park somewhere; student and practice operations are not permitted. This summer, we've been allowed to have small aircraft land and taxi back for departure, and some local pilots have taken the opportunity to add LAX to their logbooks.

There doesn't seem to be anything noteworthy about the opening photo -- unless you run the registration of this United B777. When you do, you'll discover that this aircraft is the first B777 to enter commercial service. United was the launch customer for the B777, and this one has been flying since 1995! Special thanks to MX for the heads-up on this when it passed through!

Cargo B747s at LAX

Things recently seen

I've been working the midnight shift lately. Most shiftworkers call it the graveyard shift, but it seems rather untoward for your air traffic controllers to work "the graveyard."  We generally call it the "midshift" or just "the mid."  As you might imagine, photo opportunities are rather slim while working the mid. In the current COVID-19 condition, we are not allowed to hang out before or after our assigned shift for anything as trivial as photographs, and coming in on your day off is likewise not allowed. But I did find some shots from my previous rotation earlier this month that are worth sharing.

I caught the opening shot a couple of Saturdays ago. Saturday afternoon is slow at most airline airports, but you know things are quiet when a guy is able to just cruise through the airport on his bike. This would be suicidal during normal times - if the taxis didn't get him the shuttle buses would!

I have talked about similar callsigns, but not often am I able to catch them like this:

I apologize for the fuzzy shot; this was the best of three attempts. To clarify: SWA1133 is short final for Runway 24 Right, with SKW3311 about four miles in trail, following him down the final.

All of the airlines have good portions of their fleets in temporary storage. We have a few on the ground here at LAX. The first shot shows five American B737-800s in what used to be Delta's maintenance ramp (Delta maintenance has now relocated to the far west end of the airport, where they have a hangar on the shared ramp next to the new Qantas maintenance hangar - where about half of the Qantas A380 fleet is waiting out the COVID slowdown). The second shot shows another five Americans, but A321s this time, parked in the ramp for what is usually the American Eagle terminal. If you look closely, you can see that some of the A321s have their engines sealed off with plastic. Behind the Americans is a collection of United aircraft. Not all of the Uniteds are grounded, as that is also their maintenance ramp.

One advantage of the lengthening spring days is that I do have a little bit of light just at the end of my shift. That's how I got the two shots above, as well as this sunrise arrival: