Ghost flight (commercial aviation)

In commercial aviation, ghost flight is a term used to describe a flight operated by an airline on a regularly scheduled route with an aircraft containing less than 10% of the airplane's total capacity. While initially considered to be a rare occurrence, ghost flights have become more frequent as of the early 2020s following the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics say these flights are unnecessarily adding to the environmental effects of aviation

Since the beginning of 2019, over 5,000 aircraft have flown to and from United Kingdom airports with no passengers. In addition, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) confirmed that over 35,000 flights had less than 10% of passenger capacity. The United Kingdom's biggest airport, Heathrow, accounted for 10,467 flights.

As the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread worldwide in March 2020, flights got cancelled and delayed due to travel restrictions. During this time, airline travel was reduced by 45% in 2020. Because of this, airlines had to increase the number of empty flights in order to maintain their airport slots during this time.