The Aviation Logistics of the World Cup
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Today, the world’s largest sporting event - the FIFA World Cup - will kick off at Estadio Banorte in Mexico City. This is by far the most complicated World Cup in history. It’s spread across sixteen cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The two farthest apart cities - Mexico City and Vancouver, are more than five hours apart by air.
In the last World Cup, the logistics were pretty simple. All games were held across the country of Qatar, which is the same size as the New York City Metro area. Teams, spectators, and staff simply had to fly into Doha and then drive between the stadiums. That’s simply not possible given the scale of this year’s event.
Moving the Teams
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There is an incredible amount of people and things that need to be moved for game day. There are, of course, the 1,248 players across 48 national teams. But that’s only a fraction. Each team has dozens if not hundreds of coaches, medical staff, athletic trainers, nutritionists, security guards, photographers, media relations staff, and board members of the country’s football (or soccer/futbol/whatever you want to call it) federation that also tag along.
They’re bringing along with them a lot of cargo, far beyond toiletries and clothes. There’s multiple jerseys, cleats, and other game-day items for each player that are packed. There’s medical supplies, recovery gear, video equipment, and more that need to be at the stadium and hotel. Some of this is shipped ahead of time on commercial carriers, but a lot ends up in the belly of the team’s flight.
All this necessitates a private aircraft. Mostly, the teams charter from the flag carrier of their nation. Panama’s team is using a Copa 737 MAX 8, Argentina is using an Aerolineas Argentina A330, and the US team will utilize an American Airlines 777. Notably, the legendary French team did not go with their nation’s main airline, Air France, but the luxury carrier La Compagnie. Other teams are using more specialized planes, like Brazil’s custom-painted Boeing 767-300ER operated by Azul but not used for any commercial service.
Some star players are on their own private jets separate from their team. Lionel Messi flew into Missouri on a private Challenger 300 rather than on his team’s A330.
The flights in are far from a one-and-done. First, the team heads to their training bases which are scattered across North America. Let’s take Panama for example. They first face off against Ghana and Croatia in Toronto. Then they head to play England in New Jersey. That’s a relatively tame schedule. The Colombians play Uzbekistan in Mexico City, then the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Guadalajara, then Portugal in Miami. Assuming the teams advance, they’ll be sent off to their next matches anywhere in the continent.
Because of the logistical complexity and last minute nature of advancement, the teams need to have their planes on standby to move where they need to go. Not only does this mean having the aircraft ready to go, but ground staff (IE: tugs, cargo loading, fueling) needs to be sorted out in advance and the crew needs to be adequately rested at all times.
This does, of course, comes with a huge price. FIFA gives teams a $2.5 million stipend to cover logistical costs, but the actual cost likely far exceeds that. This is supposed to work for not only flights but hotels, buses, and catering. Airlines work out their own contracts with teams which are not public, so we don’t really know how much they end up paying. The average cost of chartering an A330 is $30,000 an hour, so just to get from Buenos Aires to Kansas City could have cost the Argentinian team over $330,000.
Fan Transport
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The games wouldn’t be much without spectators! There’s 1.1 million seats to be filled across all the stadiums combined throughout the tournament, and people are traveling from all corners of the planet to get seats. Airlines are doing a few temporary flights that otherwise wouldn’t be served. Aerolineas Argentinas is perhaps the best example. They’ll be operating some one-offs between Buenos Aires and Kansas City and Dallas to shuttle fans.
Within the North American continent, most of the cities hosting World Cup games are already connected with each other by airlines. Expect to see a lot of aircraft types being up gauged, probably even to widebodies for some flights.
This World Cup is the most expensive ever, with some tickets going for $30,000+. This means there’s going to be a lot of very wealthy individuals in attendance, including celebrities and team owners. They’re likely to fly their own or chartered private jets. Airports nearby matches are preparing for influxes of jets at FBOs, not unlike what you see during F1 races or Super Bowls.
definitely gonna do some flights from UK to some host cities