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Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History
- addaon 2mo agoThis feels like one of those cases where it’s safe to say “history” instead of “recorded history.”
- amelius 2mo agoEven history is not safe if you consider the entire universe.
- dudefeliciano 2mo agoTechnically history only refers to the parts of the past for which we have written records.
- reaperducer 2mo agoPaleontologists would like to have a word…
- casper14 2mo agoNo the study of history started at written records. It's call pre-historical for a reason
- dudefeliciano 2mo agoPaleontology != History
- amelius 2mo agoWhat if the aliens wrote stuff down?
- sandworm101 2mo agoI dont think they are refering to that. I think it is a reference to all the non-recorded flights happening every day. Maybe there was a day last week with more flying, but it wasnt all recorded.
- rob74 2mo agoHistory, as recorded by Flightradar24: "a whopping grand total of 153,359 commercial flights were tracked between 00:00 UTC and 23:59 UTC on July 23, 2026" So I would say it's justified to qualify it. Not sure how Flightradar24's coverage has evolved over time, but it could theoretically be that there were more flights at some point before 2020, but some of them weren't tracked?
- epolanski 2mo agoMinor commercial flights at minor airports? The kind of 20 people flight between two cities in Indonesia not even Indonesians know much?
- FireBeyond 2mo agoOne would generally think that even those had ADS-B running.
- rob74 2mo agoSure, most commercial aircraft were probably broadcasting their position etc. via ADS-B, the question was just if they were picked up by a Flightradar24 receiver. Also, I'm not sure what the threshold is for Flightradar24 to consider a flight "tracked" - probably at least the takeoff and landing? So (to use the same example) if there was a receiver near the larger city in Indonesia where the flight originated, but not near the remote airstrip where it landed, it probably isn't considered tracked?
- bluefirebrand 2mo agoI think the parents point was that before recorded history we can be pretty sure there weren't airplanes for anyone to take flights on
- snapplebobapple 2mo agosafer to hedge ones bets. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. We could dig up a dinosaur equivalent of a 747 tomorrow. also, recorded history pulls double duty here limiting the record to earth. You never know what those shady schmucks in the delta quadrant are up to...
- datakan 2mo agoWith numbers like that I guess they have no reason to make flights more comfortable or convenient. I just did a cross country flight and back 2 weeks ago and I'm still recovering from it. I really hate flying now.
- collabs 2mo ago> With numbers like that I guess they have no reason to make flights more comfortable or convenient. I just did a cross country flight and back 2 weeks ago and I'm still recovering from it. I really hate flying now. My expectations are low and yet airlines somehow manage to fail. I made the mistake of booking a flight with frontier and they "delayed" the flight several times before eventually canceling the whole flight.
- histriosum 2mo agoAll airlines do this. It’s frustrating, and it has to do with playing the game with the DOT. They are punished for cancelling flights, but not delaying them, so the game is to delay rather than cancel until there is truly no option but to cancel. It’s an area of regulation that needs more work. I am a current airline pilot, and I end up flying on all of them in order to get to and from work. Trust me, they all do this. The impact to you may be less if it’s an airline with more flights, because that airline has more options to recover and fix your experience, but they all do it.
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- richwater 2mo agoThe real cost of air travel continues to go down as customers really only discriminate on price. Airlines have tried before to compete on other facets but everything failed. The best you can do is look at specific carriers, and more importantly specifically what aircraft you'll be flying on. A cross country flight in economy is going to be more comfortable in a Delta A220 than a United 737 Max. However, because of hubs and lack of competition many non-mega metros don't really have a large amount of choice.
- bestouff 2mo agoYes let's continue burning fuel. It's fine.
- iso1631 2mo agoWe're screwed and powerless so activate ostrich mode is one way to deal with things, at least on a personal level. Probably better for your health
- K0nserv 2mo agoFlying is a bit unique in that there aren't really viable alternatives. It also accounts for a fairly small portion of emissions. Land transport (cars and trucks), power generation, and heating are where the big wins exist with viable alternatives.
- megablast 2mo agoWhat?? In Europe there are lots of viable alternatives. Same as Asia!!
- FredFS456 2mo agoDepends on where you're flying to and from in Asia, and how far.
- jjice 2mo agoFor transport you're right. I think the parent your referring to was specifically saying there's no alternative way to power a plane. That's my assumption at least.
- RankingMember 2mo agoI'd like to see an attempt at modern air cruises on giant zeppelins.
- lbriner 2mo ago
- richwater 2mo agoThe new Airbus Project Sunrise aircraft also set the record for longest passenger aircraft flight
- RankingMember 2mo agoJust looked that up. Good lord, they need to amend the universal declaration of human rights to include flying people 24 hours straight in coach as a violation.
- richwater 2mo agoIt will surely be a tough sell. It will be very expensive (comparatively), and most travelers won't even want to do it. There's a reason Ethiad is so successful on these kinds of flights because their hub creates a natural stopping point halfway.
- brainwad 2mo agoI would pay a premium for it. The direct flight is still better than being interrupted halfway through your "night", and then having to trudge through a huge transfer airport just to get on another plane for another 8-14h. Also, the direct flight will be able to set the cabin lights and meal schedule optimally for you, unlike the stopover flights. And it's several hours quicker. The downside is that it doesn't scale beyond the biggest city pairs: you'd need N^2 direct flights vs 2N flights via a hub.
- Wildgoose 2mo agoThis seems like madness to me. A fully loaded 747 has around 140,000 litres of energy-dense jet fuel containing between 2.2 and 2.9 GWh worth of energy - or around two hours output of a typical power station. This level of profligacy is simply not sustainable.
- noosphr 2mo agoYes, we need to shut down the power plants. People lived without electricity for millions of years, they can always get back to it. /s
- RankingMember 2mo agoTo me, the parent's statement was a comment on the enormity of aircraft fuel used.
- twister2920 2mo agonot really the same thing
- chneu 2mo agoTo summarize, this is the equivalent of someone putting their fingers in their ear and going, "lalalalalala I'm not listening" while someone tells them to stop being a consumption monster.
- RankingMember 2mo agoParkinson's Law needs a moderator in the form of agreed-upon limits. How we get there, I have no idea, but it's well-overdue.
- kbart 2mo agoModern aviation is an amazing engineering feat (all the environmental issues aside). With such numbers it means that "one in a million" failure occurs roughly evey week, but the fact that we have so little major incidents demonstrates how well aicrafts are engineered.
- kilroy123 2mo agoI was up in the air flying that day. It didn't seem busy at all. Everything was on time, quick, and smooth on both sides. My partner and I commented on how smooth everything went.
- leaves83829 2mo agoi don't understand how we can be setting new records on airflights at a time when there is a major oil crisis unfolding. oil isn't at 200$/barrel yet but you'd think even at 100$/barrel the price signals would cause at least some demand destruction. and wasn't there talk in europe of jet fuel shortages. and governments everywhere are supposed to run out of emergency oil supplies in the next 1 to 6 months? i'm a bit confused.
- epolanski 2mo agoIf a price of a ticket goes up 10/20/50 euros it's not gonna deter me a bit if I have to fly. Most people fly because they have to, family gatherings, planned vacations, business trips. The number of people genuinely deterred by a small amount in price is still going to be small. Also, inflation adjusted, fuel isn't that expensive. 80/90$ a barrel are prices we've seen already decades ago.
- profeaturr 2mo agoThe narrative that the online news-driven world tends toward is more a result of ideology and wishful thinking than reality. Hence the term “fake news.”
- caycep 2mo agoThe need for transportation grows but the margin is likely terrible bc of the fuel prices. Hence why you can have "the most flights etc etc" but Spirit and other airlines are going under
- HDBaseT 2mo agoMore people, more flights.
- originalvichy 2mo agoI’m worried that we will spend precious resources like oil on useless transport. I strongly believe that all of us who care deeply about the future of our civilization’s technological progress need to push for stronger limits on short fistance and low occupancy travel for air, land and sea. Even if you are not alarmed about the environmental impact of flights as a share of global emissions, it’s no reason to spend our global oil reserves for useless travel. Airlines already optimize flights and routes, but the gap can be closed even further if we simply let go of the immediate convenience of booking flights.