Britains’ NATS, an air-traffic control management company, commissioned these beautiful visualizations of flights over the Atlantic ocean (above) and Europe (below). The animation itself was created by 422, whose website contains many similar animations. From The Guardian:
An animation by the National Air Traffic Services (Nats), the UK air traffic control service, demonstrates the flight paths of the 2,000 to 3,000 aircraft that fly across the North Atlantic on a daily basis. This animation shows 2,524 flights that travelled between Canada, the US and Europe on a single day in August 2013
From the video description:
Sequence was produced for NATS – the UK based global air traffic management company. NATS says: ‘This data visualization was created from real flight data taken from a day in July 2013. It highlights the intensity of the operation in Europe – an operation which runs 24 x 7 x 365. NATS and the UK are at the heart of the operation. With Heathrow as the busiest international airport in Europe, and Gatwick as the busiest single runway airport in the world, we play a key role in ensuring air traffic under our control in European airspace is as safe and efficient as it can be.’