Andrew Doyle, Senior Director – Market Development, Cirium
With just over a week’s worth of utilisation data available since the Iran conflict began on 28 February, we can start to get a sense of the overall impact on daily flight hours trends for the global passenger jet fleet by airframe type and engine fit, writes Cirium Senior Director Market Development Andrew Doyle.
Cirium fleet and tracking data can be used to calculate the year-on-year percentage changes in total tracked daily flying hours for some of the key aircraft/engine combinations, by comparing the seven-day rolling average for each day since late February 2026 with the equivalent day last year (364 days prior, to align days of the week).
The chart below illustrates the effect the crisis has had on four-engined Airbus A380 and GE Aerospace GE90-powered Boeing 777 twinjet usage, given the large fleets flown by Middle Eastern carriers, although the lines are beginning to flatten out as Emirates in particular starts to recover its operations.
Given the number of airlines that usually operate daily flights to Middle Eastern airports, most aircraft types have been negatively impacted to an extent, although for in-production models this has typically resulted in a dampening of year-on-year growth rather than an absolute reduction in total daily flight hours.
It remains to be seen where these trend lines will settle if attacks continue over the coming days or weeks.
Year-on-year % change in the seven-day rolling-average of total daily flight hours, by aircraft/engine
