London, which was the most connected city by air in the world prior to the pandemic, has lost 67 per cent of its connectivity, according to new figures released by IATA.
The British capital now sits at number eight, with the top spot taken over by the previous second-placed city Shanghai.
The figures show that the four most connected cities in September 2020 were all in China, with Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu completing the top four.
New York has also seen a fall from grace. The former number three most connected city has lost 67 per cent of its connectivity and has fallen out of the top ten altogether, as have Tokyo, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Seoul.
IATA says that cities with large numbers of domestic connections now dominate.
“The dramatic shift in the connectivity rankings demonstrates the scale at which the world’s connectivity has been re-ordered over the last months," said Sebastian Mikosz, IATA’s senior vice president for member external relations.
“But the important point is that rankings did not shift because of any improvement in connectivity. That declined overall in all markets.
“The rankings shifted because the scale of the decline was greater for some cities than others. There are no winners, just some players that suffered fewer injuries.”
Mikosz added: “In a short period of time we have undone a century of progress in bringing people together and connecting markets. The message we must take from this study is the urgent need to re-build the global air transport network.”
IATA calculates connectivity by the number of seats flown to the destinations served from a country’s major airports and the economic importance of those destinations.
The organisation says there is a positive link between connectivity and productivity: a 10 per cent rise in connectivity, relative to a country’s GDP, will boost labour productivity levels by 0.07 per cent.