SOURCE: Earther
DATE: July 3, 2018
SNIP: FlightRadar24, a popular website and app that’s been tracking air traffic around the world since 2007, recently recorded its busiest day in air travel ever, likely the busiest the globe has ever seen. The group tallied 202,157 flights last Friday, including commercial jets, cargo flights, and personal planes. That’s the equivalent of 140 planes in the air every minute. This is unabashedly terrible news for the climate and also a mark likely to be broken as the world continues to take to the increasingly crowded skies.
Data from FlightRadar24 show weekdays (which tend to be busier than weekends) in June saw total traffic in the low 190,000s range through the first three weeks of the month, with Fridays generally being the busiest day. The last week in June was busier than other weeks, with June 29th capping a frenetic week.
A record-setting 4.1 billion passengers took off in 2017 according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). In 1950, there were only a few million travelers in comparison. Year after year, travelers have increased with only a few bumps here and there due to pesky things like the financial meltdown of 2009.
People are also flying further than ever before. In 2017, flyers traveled an estimated 7.7 trillion kilometers (4.8 trillion miles). That’s the equivalent of 10 million trips to the moon and also a shit ton of frequent flyer miles.