Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on wildlife risk in 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has substantially impacted the aviation industry ant it has generated new risks for aviation safety. The extreme decrease in air traffic mouvements and the reduction of certain environmental and animal risk management actions enabled animals, birds in particular, to establish at aerodromes during lockdown in spring 2020. As a consequence, the avian population present on aerodromes in summer 2020, at the restart of operations, was abundant and not used to aircraft activity. This led to a significant increase in the wildlife stike rate.

This document provides an overview of the effects that the reduction of air traffic operations and wildlife management measures had on wildlife risk on French aerodromes during the year 2020.