Aviation Insights Report – February 2019

Published on January 03, 2019
Dr. Ali Gazala
Data Scientist

Analysis of Airline Booking Patterns and Events Impact

The Super Bowl will bring 75,000 people to Atlanta in February, but this event is far from the most significant for strategic teams in the airline industry. Especially when compared to a big spike in travel to Japan as millions of people jet in for winter events, and several much larger events detailed in this month’s Aviation Insights report.

Northern Japanese town Sapporo is bracing for an estimated 2.2 million people in early February as it hosts its annual Snow Festival, and International Ski Marathon.

For airline demand forecasters, the Sapporo events have the benefit of being annual and always in the same location, although the date varies slightly each year. Other large events are more dynamic, with well-known events such as the Super Bowl changing location each year but also hundreds of events with tens of thousands of attendees that are far less well known.

One such event this month is the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society summit, a global not-for-profit organization working to improve health care through software and IT services. The annual event attracts more than 35,000 people and this year it’s predicted to cause a 15% increase in domestic arrival to Orlando airport during the third week of February. It’s one of more than 20,000 similarly sized professional conferences that change location each year in the United States alone.

PredictHQ has identified and verified more than 1,000 notable events in February 2019. This enables our customers, including Amadeus, Qantas and other major air travel companies, to understand how real-world events will impact business before they take place, so they don’t miss out on opportunities.

Below are some of the events we expect will have a high potential impact on travel patterns this month.

Our Predicted Impactful Events

The following table highlights events that we expect to have a high potential impact on air travel patterns during February 2019.

DateLocationEvent NameExpected Attendance
Feb 3, 2019Atlanta, United StatesSuper Bowl75000
Feb 3, 2019Sapporo, JapanSapporo International Ski Marathon2000
Feb 4 – 11, 2019Sapporo, JapanSapporo Snow Festival2000000
Feb 8 – 12, 2019Frankfurt, GermanyAmbiente133582
Feb 11 – 15, 2019Orlando, United StatesHIMSS Conference38000
Feb 25 – 28, 2019Barcelona, SpainMobile World Congress108000

This summary of some of the largest and most concentrated people movements is just the tip of the iceberg for non-typical people movement in February. The lack of visibility into real-world events makes it almost impossible for businesses to predict and prepare for customer demand, which impacts efficiency and customer satisfaction.