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The stat that really woke me up to how popular travel was when an aviation magazine once posted that at any second of any day, there are at least one million pe

The stat that really woke me up to how popular travel was when an aviation magazine once posted that at any second of any day, there are at least one million people flying in an airplane somewhere. That's an entire good sized city full of people who are not in contact with the ground at any point in time you care to pick. And that article was quite a few years old, I wouldn't be surprised if that number has increased significantly lately. That should bring some perspective to the environmental impact of transporting that many people around the globe.

kzrdude 9y ago
..and it's reassuring me of the safety of aviation.
- cyberferret 9y ago
  That is a huge positive aspect. Whenever anyone I know laments an air crash somewhere in the world, I just say to them "Right now, there are over 1 million people airborne, and who will arrive at their destination safely. The same will happen in 10 minutes, in an hour, in 6 hours, and tomorrow".
FabHK 9y ago
It's said that 1000+ Boeing 737 alone are airborne $NOW.
- Someone 9y ago
  That’s likely true. They produced the 10,000th 737 in March, so if each plane were airborne eight hours a day (not unrealistic for commercial planes), two thirds of all 737s produced could be out of service to get at that 1000 ⇒ I would guess that actual number is closer to 2000, possibly even over iT.
- bluedino 9y ago
  Over 1200 737-800’s alone https://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/ https://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/
pishpash 9y ago
This doesn't sound right. Would like to see the numbers.
- objclxt 9y ago
  Seems pretty reasonable to me. There can be 9-10,000 flights in the sky at any one time (go check out any of the flight radar/tracking sites).
- tzs 9y ago
  Note that as written, it would include crew and passengers of commercial airlines, crew of cargo planes, passengers and crew on non-commercial flights, and passengers and crew on military flights. A bit of Googling only turned up data for passengers on commercial airlines, so let's just do those for now. At the end of 2013, according to the IATA, there were 8 million commercial passengers per day [1]. It looks like it has grown to about 12 million a day since then [2]. If the average flight is 2 hours or more, that would give an average of 1 million commercial airline passengers in the air at a given time. I didn't find any reasonable looking average world flight time data, but the impression I got is that 2 hours is probably in the ballpark. But that's just an average. At times it will be above that, and at times below it. Given the number of people and flights we are dealing with, I think that variation above and below would be fairly narrow. Thus, I think it is plausible that if cargo, military, and others were included that would be enough to push it to always over 1 million. [1] http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2013-12-30-01.aspx http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2013-12-30-01.aspx [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...

kzrdude 9y ago

..and it's reassuring me of the safety of aviation.

cyberferret 9y ago
That is a huge positive aspect. Whenever anyone I know laments an air crash somewhere in the world, I just say to them "Right now, there are over 1 million people airborne, and who will arrive at their destination safely. The same will happen in 10 minutes, in an hour, in 6 hours, and tomorrow".

FabHK 9y ago

It's said that 1000+ Boeing 737 alone are airborne $NOW.

Someone 9y ago
That’s likely true. They produced the 10,000th 737 in March, so if each plane were airborne eight hours a day (not unrealistic for commercial planes), two thirds of all 737s produced could be out of service to get at that 1000 ⇒ I would guess that actual number is closer to 2000, possibly even over iT.
bluedino 9y ago
Over 1200 737-800’s alone https://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/ https://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/

pishpash 9y ago

This doesn't sound right. Would like to see the numbers.

objclxt 9y ago
Seems pretty reasonable to me. There can be 9-10,000 flights in the sky at any one time (go check out any of the flight radar/tracking sites).
tzs 9y ago
Note that as written, it would include crew and passengers of commercial airlines, crew of cargo planes, passengers and crew on non-commercial flights, and passengers and crew on military flights. A bit of Googling only turned up data for passengers on commercial airlines, so let's just do those for now. At the end of 2013, according to the IATA, there were 8 million commercial passengers per day [1]. It looks like it has grown to about 12 million a day since then [2]. If the average flight is 2 hours or more, that would give an average of 1 million commercial airline passengers in the air at a given time. I didn't find any reasonable looking average world flight time data, but the impression I got is that 2 hours is probably in the ballpark. But that's just an average. At times it will be above that, and at times below it. Given the number of people and flights we are dealing with, I think that variation above and below would be fairly narrow. Thus, I think it is plausible that if cargo, military, and others were included that would be enough to push it to always over 1 million. [1] http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2013-12-30-01.aspx http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2013-12-30-01.aspx [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...