COVID-19 Travel November 10, 2020Except for some international routes that had a stable or growing number of connecting flights, the global trend was toward nonstop, direct flights. Global connecting traffic at the global level has been falling in recent years, but intercontinental flows are largely stable. Share of connecting ticket passengers 1 by flow, by September of each year, % Type of traffic % in 2005 % in 2019 Global 20 17 Europe to North America 46 45 Europe to Asia 45 50 Asia to North America 44 52 South America to North America 48 60 Notes 1 Connecting passengers are counted twice (once arriving, once departing), so shares of overall connections are higher when looking at handled passengers. Source: International Air Transport Association Passenger Intelligence Services McKinsey & Company To read the article, see “Will airline hubs recover from COVID-19?,” November 5, 2020.