In a world where airports are being expanded, I thought I'd do a quick calculation: If all the flights that happen today are evenly distributed to everyone in the world, we would all fly: 4 short haul or 1 long haul every 24 years. Please let me know if my calculation below is correct! 🧵 (1/4) - ThreadSky

peteknapp.bsky.social • 19 days ago

In a world where airports are being expanded, I thought I'd do a quick calculation:

If all the flights that happen today are evenly distributed to everyone in the world, we would all fly:
4 short haul or 1 long haul every 24 years.

Please let me know if my calculation below is correct!

🧵 (1/4)

Comments

country-air.bsky.social•19 days ago

And yet ministers sucking up to airport expansions. Has anyone linked fraud and theft to the government officials approving of it and the aviation industry?

peteknapp.bsky.social•19 days ago

There were 8.17 trillion passenger km flown in 2023.
(For scale, this is 756 return trips to Pluto)

There were 8.1 billion people in 2023.

Therefore, if the total passenger km are divided equally, each person would fly 1010 km or 504 km return every year.

(2/4)

peteknapp.bsky.social•19 days ago

If the average long-haul flight is 12,000 km (or 24,000 km return) and the average short-haul is 3,000 km (or 6,000 km return), then each person would fly:

Long-haul every: 24,000 / 1010 = 23.76 years
Short-haul every: 6,000 / 1010 = 5.94 years

(3/4)

peteknapp.bsky.social•19 days ago

Finally, London to Sydney is 17,000 km, or 34,000 km return, so this flight would be taken every
34,000 / 1010 = 33.7 years if airmiles were evenly distributed to people globally.

(4/4)

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alexrowan.bsky.social•19 days ago

Instinct tells me that the short-haul distance would be much smaller, therefore more flights per person. My Eurocentric view thinks of all those business travellers hopping between London / Paris / Frankfurt. London-Paris is 350km. Busiest globally: 14.2m people flew Seoul-Jeju for 450km.

peteknapp.bsky.social•19 days ago

Yes the averages are very hard to work out, but maybe it’s easier to think of it as 1000km per person per year

alexrowan.bsky.social•19 days ago

Perhaps easier to identify 756x2 nominees for a one way trip to Pluto!

I did a bit of research on LHR capacity: 10-12% is UK domestic. 35% is transit. Ban mainland domestic flights, tax transit, frequent flyer tax. Polluter pays. And don’t expand LHR.

flightfreeuk.bsky.social•18 days ago

Love this! Where did you get the info on average kms from? Both feel a bit long... if you're using mean rather than mode, mode might make more sense here? Lon-NY & Lon-Dubai are top 2 long-haul trips for UK travellers, top short haul = Dublin, Amsterdam & Barcelona.

flightfreeuk.bsky.social•18 days ago

peteknapp.bsky.social•18 days ago

Yes the averages are very hard to work out, but maybe it’s easier to think of it as 1000km per person per year?

flightfreeuk.bsky.social•18 days ago

Sorry to confuse... this is referring to the average long haul (you say 12,000km) and the average short haul (you say 3000km). Just wondering where those figures come from, as they're likely to be mean average, no? But if you use mode average it would be more realistic to people's actual journeys:

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