Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many general aviation flights originating in countries on the red list during the covid-19 pandemic operated (a) directly and (b) indirectly into UK airports in each of the last three months.

Information on the number of commercially operated flights is collected by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and is currently complete up to November 2020. The list of ‘red list’ countries was last updated on 29 January 2021, therefore the ‘red list’ designation did not apply at the time that the flights operated.

The data shows that in November 2020, flights operated into UK airports from countries which are now currently identified as ‘red list’ were as follows:

• 709 direct commercial passenger flights, and
• 146 direct commercial cargo-only flights.

Complete data for December 2020 and January 2021 will be made available to the Department later in 2021.

The CAA does not collect data on General Aviation flights at UK airports by country of origin. Further timely information on overall volumes of flights directly performed to and from the UK across all types of flight operations (inclusive of passenger, cargo-only, military and general aviation flights) are made publicly available by Eurocontrol on their website, however breakdowns by country of origin and flight type are not routinely made available.

The Department does not hold statistics on indirect flights operating into UK airports.