Category: ✈️ Air Travel

I fly a lot.

I remember when I first started travelling significantly, on one flight a woman sitting next to me told me of her worries about the radiation she would be exposed to during the long flight.

The thought lingered in my mind for a few seconds, but I never thought any more of it.

Until a friend posed this question over dinner a few nights ago…

Methodology

I looked at radiation doses using data from radiologyinfo.org (via The Guardian) and compared it to findings from a number of studies investigating radiation exposure during commercial airline flights.

Results

Radiation dosages

Let’s start by looking at radiation guidelines, and set some points of reference to make this data more quantifiable.

Event	Radiation reading, millisievert (mSv)
Single dose, fatal within weeks	10,000
Typical doseage recorded in those Chernobyl workers who died within a month	6,000
Single does which would kill half of those exposed to it within a month	5,000
Single doseage which would cause radiation sickness, including nausea, lower white blood cell count. Not fatal	1,000
Accumulated doseage estimated to cause a fatal cancer many years later in 5% of people	1,000
Max radiation levels recorded at Fukushima plant yesterday, per hour	400
Exposure of Chernobyl residents who were relocated after the blast in 1986	350
Recommended limit for radiation workers every five years	100
Lowest annual dose at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident	100
CT scan: heart	16
CT scan: abdomen & pelvis	15
Dose in full-body CT scan	10
Natural radiation we’re all exposed to, per year	2
CT scan: head	2
Spine x-ray	1.5
Radiation per hour detected at Fukushimia site, 12 March	1.015
Mammogram breast x-ray	0.4
Chest x-ray	0.1
Dental x-ray	0.005

Download data.

The scientific unit of measurement for whole body radiation dose, called “effective dose,” is the millisievert (mSv).

Most routine x-rays expose us to very low levels of radiation. A dental x-ray exposes a patient to 0.005 mSv. Putting this into context, the lowest annual dose at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident is 100 mSv, or 20,000 dental x-rays.

Radiation exposure during flying

Route	mSv per 100 block hours	mSv per 1 hour
Seattle to Portland	0.03	0.0003
New York to Chicago	0.39	0.0039
Los Angeles to Honolulu	0.26	0.0026
London to New York	0.51	0.0051
Athens to New York	0.63	0.0063
Tokyo to New York	0.55	0.0055

Download data.

Based on studies, the radiation dose rate on 6 typical commercial airline flights at an altitude of 35,000 feet varies between 0.0003 mSV and 0.00055 per hour (mean average = 0.0004 msv). It is important to note that radiation dose levels represent a complex function of duration of flight, latitude, and altitude.

That said, assuming the average flight times from the route data from my post: The Worlds Shortest Commercial Flight. 2 Minutes to Fly 3 Kilometres, the graph and table below show estimated radiation exposure for the 38 longest (by time) routes.

Download chart.

Rank (mSv)	From	To	Distance km	Scheduled duration	Radiation dose (mSv)
1	Auckland	Doha	14,524	17:35:00	0.0070
2	Auckland	Dubai	14,203	17:15:00	0.0069
3	Dallas/Fort Worth	Sydney	13,804	16:55:00	0.0068
3	San Francisco	Singapore	13,593	16:55:00	0.0068
5	Johannesburg	Atlanta	13,582	16:40:00	0.0067
6	Dubai-International	Los Angeles	13,420	16:35:00	0.0066
7	Abu Dhabi	Los Angeles	13,502	16:30:00	0.0066
7	Jeddah	Los Angeles	13,409	16:30:00	0.0066
9	Doha	Los Angeles	13,367	16:25:00	0.0066
10	San Francisco	Singapore	13,593	16:20:00	0.0065
10	Dubai-International	Houston-Intercontinental	13,144	16:20:00	0.0065
10	Dallas/Fort Worth	Hong Kong	13,072	16:20:00	0.0065
10	Abu Dhabi	Dallas/Fort Worth	12,962	16:20:00	0.0065
10	Doha	Houston-Intercontinental	12,951	16:20:00	0.0065
10	Dubai-International	Dallas/Fort Worth	12,940	16:20:00	0.0065
10	Doha	Dallas/Fort Worth	12,764	16:20:00	0.0065
17	Abu Dhabi	San Francisco	13,128	16:15:00	0.0065
18	New York	Guangzhou	12,878	16:05:00	0.0064
18	New York	Guangzhou	12,878	16:05:00	0.0064
18	Johannesburg	New York	12,825	16:05:00	0.0064
18	Mumbai	Newark	12,565	16:05:00	0.0064
22	New York	Hong Kong	12,983	16:00:00	0.0064
22	New York	Hong Kong	12,983	16:00:00	0.0064
22	New York	Hong Kong	12,983	16:00:00	0.0064
22	Newark	Hong Kong	12,980	16:00:00	0.0064
26	Houston-Intercontinental	Taipei	12,776	15:55:00	0.0064
26	Mumbai	Newark	12,565	15:55:00	0.0064
28	Dubai-International	San Francisco	13,041	15:50:00	0.0063
28	Newark	Hong Kong	12,980	15:50:00	0.0063
28	Boston	Hong Kong	12,827	15:50:00	0.0063
28	Los Angeles	Melbourne	12,748	15:50:00	0.0063
28	Los Angeles	Melbourne	12,748	15:50:00	0.0063
28	Los Angeles	Melbourne	12,748	15:50:00	0.0063
34	Toronto	Hong Kong	12,569	15:35:00	0.0062
35	Toronto	Hong Kong	12,569	15:30:00	0.0062
35	Toronto	Hong Kong	12,569	15:30:00	0.0062
35	New York	Taipei	12,566	15:30:00	0.0062
38	New York	Taipei	12,566	15:20:00	0.0061

View calculations.

The mean average mSv for the 38 longest flights by time, with durations between 15:20 and 17:35, is 0.0064 mSv. Put another way, just under 6.5% of the radiation you would receive from a chest x-ray. The longest flight by time, Auckland to Doha at 17 hours 35 minutes, exposes passengers to and estimated 0.007 mSV, which is about 0.32% of the average radiation you would be exposed to each year naturally.

Frequent flyers

In 2017, business traveler Tom Stuker became the world’s most frequent flyer, logging 18,000,000 miles (28,968,192 km) of air travel on United Airlines over the last 14 years — that’s 722.8 times (51.6 times per year) around the world (assuming 40,075 km equatorial circumference of earth)!

Assuming an average flight speed (550 mph), Stuker’s 18,000,000 miles would translate into 32,727 hours (2337.6 hours per year) of flight time or 212 mSv (15.12 mSv per year) of radiation. About the same as a CT scan of your abdomen and pelvis each year.

Most pilots typically log under 1,000 hours per year so airline workers would have risk levels about half that of Stuker’s (less than 7.5 mSv per year).

tl;dr

Even if you’re a frequent flyer, the risk from radiation to your health is low. Pilots are exposed to no more than 7.5 mSv per year, equivalent to 75 chest x-rays, well below the lowest annual dose at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident (100 mSv).

Footnotes

1. Data sources + data used in this post.

I like to board last. I’ve never understood the appeal of being on the plane any longer than I need too (I’m yet to travel in business class).

A lot of my travel is international, and it often involves flying on the giants of the sky, including Boeing 747s (not for much longer) and the huge Airbus A380.

As I waited to board an A380 on a trip to San Francisco from London this year I did some back of the napkin (literally) calculations at the departure gate. Assuming the 469 seats on the flight were occupied sold at the approximate cost I paid for the ticket ($1000), equals a potential ticket revenue for that flight of $469,000 for the airline. Bear in mind, it is estimated an A380 costs between $26,000 – $29,000 per hour to operate (and the flight is almost 12 hours)!

Clearly my calculation is far from accurate. Though it got me thinking, with multiple flights being operated daily throughout the year, some routes might be generating billions of dollars in revenue yearly.

Methodology

OAG leverages the world’s largest network of air travel data to provide accurate, timely, actionable digital information and applications to the world’s airlines, airports, government agencies and travel-related service companies.

The company produced a report in February 2018 titled: “Key Facts Behind the World’s Busiest Routes“. It details the world’s busiest trunk routes in terms of the volume of flights that operate on them. For each of the 20 routes the report lists various statistics for each route from passenger numbers to average route length.

To estimate route revenue I used Skyscanner (on 04/09/2018) to calculate the cheapest economy return flight (5-day) for the 20 routes 6 months into the future (04/03/2018 – 08/03/2018).

Using these statistics, I performed the following analysis.

The average stage length for the 20 routes is 1384.05km. 19 of the 20 routes could be considered short-haul flights (below 2,562km). The only long-haul route (cross continent) is London (LHR) to New York (JFK) with an average stage length of 5,536km.

1 of the routes operates in North America / Europe, 1 in the Middle East, 2 of the routes are in Europe, 2 in North America, and 14 in Asia.

Results

Aircraft used on routes

Download chart.

The choice of aircraft is an important one. Newer aircraft are more fuel efficient, others can fly longer distances.

19 of top 20 busiest routes use Airbus A318/319/320/321 aircraft. Given the majority of the routes (17) all operate outside North America (Boeing’s largest market) this is unsurprising.

The Boeing 737 still proves popular 38 years since it first rolled off the production line (15 operating). Interestingly, despite many routes being considered short-haul, the Airbus A380, with upwards of 469 seats, is operated on 6 routes.

Route revenues

Download chart.

Unsurprisingly the longest, and most expensive ($693) route by lowest ticket price (New York JFK – London LHR) generates the most revenue (over $2 billion dollars). The route carries 3,049,370 passengers yearly (ranked 8th by passengers of all routes) with 3,651,659 available. That is a is a passenger load factor of 84% (above the average load factor of 80% for all routes).

The other two routes that generate more than $1 billion are Hong Kong – Taipei ($1.52 billion) and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport – Singapore ($1.06 billion).

Route revenues for airlines with largest market share

Download chart.

British Airways is the largest operator on the New York JFK – London (42% of all flights) and generates an estimated revenue of $887,549,632.20. Assuming the average ticket cost is 20% higher than the lowest price I found (very likely) would mean this is a $1 billion route for BA. This is almost double the earnings of the two largest airlines on the second and third highest revenue generating routes.

Revenue per km

Download chart.

Given the comparatively short distance between Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (Jakarta) – Singapore  (880km) and large passenger revenue $1,519,775,162.00) means it generates the most revenue per kilometre flown ($63.25). Compare that to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport – Kuala Lumpur (1,127km) which generates just $5.82 per kilometre.

Improvements

Most of the calculations in this post rely on accurate average ticket prices for routes. Unfortunately I was limited to using SkyScanner to estimate average prices. The biggest improvement to this analysis would be to include accurate ticket revenues.

tl;dr

New York JFK – London LHR potentially generates $2 billion dollars in revenue from ticket sales each year.

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.

Ten hours, possibly longer, stuck in a small metal tube with hundreds of other people each wrestling for the tiniest amount of extra space. Flying can be a chore.

Electronics powering music, movies and games, are staples of modern flyers that help to pass the time. Airlines invest millions in onboard entertainment systems to improve passenger experience.

A quick Google search will show you that many passengers, including myself, are now regularly asking if internet services are found onboard flights. The same search will also show you how poor these services can be, assuming they exists at all.

Boeing’s early in-flight Internet service, Connexion, launched in 2001 (since discontinued). 17 year later, how has the market for in-flight internet developed?

Methodology

Each year Skytrax put together a list of the top 100 airlines around the world using a range of variables. The most recent is the 2017 version. Due to the merger of Alaska Airlines (36) and Virgin America (43) I have reduced the list to 99, removing Virgin America.

For each of the 99 airlines I then visited their websites to identify if:

1. they offer onboard internet
2. the cost of internet services, if applicable

Not all airlines clearly document wether internet services exist. Many use the umbrella term “WiFi onboard”, however, in many cases this does not include internet access, instead just access to a network with inflight content (similar to that offered on traditional inflight entertainment systems). Those who did not explicitly document internet access were recorded as not to offer it.

Similarly, many airlines are slowly rolling out wifi. In some cases only a few routes served by an airline have in-flight internet, for others the coverage is more widespread. Due to lack of information about internet access by route the actual prevalence of internet onboard is not accounted for.

The cost of in-flight internet, which almost all airlines charge for, is rather complex. There is no unified standard for providing services, some airlines charge based on data usage, others by time, and in some case some by the originating country of the flight. Due to lack of standardisation, I only documented the airlines that offered free access or paid access to in-flight internet.

Finally, I assigned each airline a classification based on the routes they serve, either regional (only short/medium-haul routes) and international (at least one long-haul route), the assumption being that fewer regional flights will offer in-flight internet because of the shorter flight times.

Results

In-flight internet coverage (all airlines)

Download chart.

67 of airlines in the top 99 offer internet on at least one of their routes. The top 20 Skytrax rated airlines all have in-flight internet services available. There is a strong correlation between in-flight internet and an airlines Skytrax rating — those towards the bottom of the rankings tend not to offer internet services to customers.

In-flight internet coverage (international airlines)

Download chart.

Of the 73 international airlines covered, 53 offered onboard internet.

In-flight internet coverage (regional airlines)

Download chart.

Unsurprisingly, a smaller share of regional airlines offer onboard internet — 14 of the 26 regional airlines offer the service.

Free in-flight internet for business of first class travellers (all airlines)

Download chart.

The cost to retrofit planes with internet capabilities represents a significant investment for an airline. Many in-flight internet providers have business models to make a much money as possible to a very small number of people charging eye-watering prices to access internet services. 11 of the 99 airlines offer free in-flight internet as standard to business or first class customers.

Skytrax 2017 rank	Airline	Type	Free internet in first or business
4	Emirates	International	Yes
10	Garuda Indonesia	International	Yes
12	Turkish Airlines	International	Yes
28	Norwegian	International	Yes
38	Aer Lingus	International	Yes
39	jetBlue Airways	Regional	Yes
67	Philippine Airlines	International	Yes
72	China Eastern	International	Yes
82	Icelandair	International	Yes
84	Gulf Air	International	Yes
98	Air China	International	Yes

Full table.

Free in-flight internet for economy travellers (all airlines)

Download chart.

Only 6 of the 99 airlines offer some level of free in-flight internet to economy flyers. However, most of these services are limited by time or data volume making anything other than checking emails impossible.

Skytrax 2017 rank	Airline	Type	Free for all
4	Emirates	International	Yes (limited)
10	Garuda Indonesia	International	Yes (limited)
28	Norwegian	International	Yes (unlimited)
67	Philippine Airlines	International	Yes (limited)
98	Air China	International	Yes (limited)
39	jetBlue Airways	Regional	Yes (limited)

Full table.

Norwegian deserve a special mention not just because they offer an unlimited in-flight internet service, where available, but also because of the high number of their routes where this service is available.

tl;dr

67 of the top 99 Skytrax airlines offer in-flight internet. International carriers most likely to offer the service (72%) when compared to their regional counterparts (54%).

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Wednesday.

The Time Zone system counts 12 hours in either direction from Greenwich and meets up more or less in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This imaginary boundary is called the International Date Line and anywhere it meets, an extremely strange thing happens. Time jumps ahead 24 hours – an entire day. If you fly from China to the West Coast of the US, for example, the jump can be particularly tough on the body.

Flying long-haul can be very tough on your body. Timezone changes mixed with hours of sitting uncomfortably (unless you’re lucky to fly business class or above) is not something many look forward too.

Timezone changes can work both ways. When Concorde was in operation (1976 – 2003) flying from London to New York you could arrive, in terms of local time, before you left. A New York to London flight took only 3 hours 20 minutes (the fastest journey was 2 hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds!).

How bad does it get? What are the longest plane journeys?

Methodology

I collected data from Wikipedia about commercial aircraft ranges and both operational and retired commercial routes for comparison.

Analysis

Aircraft ranges

Download chart.

The biggest limitation to flying distance is aircraft — it takes a lot of fuel to keep a plane in the air.

The Boeing 777-200LR (the LR stands for Long Range) is the aircraft with the largest potential range, 17,395km (the circumference of the earth is 40,008km).

Did you know? The aircraft with the longest ranges are: 1. Boeing 777-200LR (17,395km), 2. Airbus A340-500 (16,670km), 3. Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (15,750km).

Longest distance routes (by aircraft type)

Download chart.

The longest route (distance) operated by a Turboprop aircraft is the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 (1726 km / PD175).

All of the 10 longest flights are operated by jet powered aircraft. The longest route (distance) operated by a Jetliner aircraft is the Boeing 777-200LR (14,524km / QR 921). This is just under 3000km short of the aircrafts max operating range (17,395km).

Notably, flight SV 41 operated by an Boeing 777-300ER between Jeddah and LA takes about 16 hours 55 mins to cover 13,400km. However, flight UA 179 (San Francisco to Singapore) covers a longer distance (13,600km) but is 35 minutes shorter in duration (16 hours 20 mins) operated on a Boeing 787-9.

Longest distance (by active routes)

Download chart.

Rank (dist.)	From – To	Flight number	Distance km	Scheduled duration	Aircraft type
1	Auckland-Doha	QR 921	14524	17:35:00	Boeing 777-200LR
2	Auckland-Dubai	EK 449	14203	17:15:00	Airbus A380-799
3	Dallas/Fort Worth-Sydney	QF 8	13804	16:55:00	Airbus A380-800
4	San Francisco-Singapore	SQ 31	13593	16:55:00	Airbus A350
5	San Francisco-Singapore	UA 179	13593	16:20:00	Boeing 787-9
6	Johannesburg-Atlanta	DL 201	13582	16:40:00	Boeing 777-200LR
7	Abu Dhabi-Los Angeles	EY 171	13502	16:30:00	Boeing 777-200LR
8	Dubai-International-Los Angeles	EK 215	13420	16:35:00	Airbus A380-800
9	Jeddah-Los Angeles	SV 41	13409	16:30:00	Boeing 777-300ER
10	Doha-Los Angeles	QR 739	13367	16:25:00	Boeing 777-200LR
11	Dubai-Houston	EK 211	13144	16:20:00	Airbus A380-800

Full ranking.

Did you know? The longest routes (distance) currently in operation are: 1. QR921 Auckland – Doha (14,524km / 17h35m / 777-200LR), 2. EK449 Auckland – Dubai (14,203km / 17h15m / A380-800), 3. QF8 Dallas – Sydney (13,804km / 16h55m / A380-800)

Longest distance (by discontinued routes)

Download chart.

The longest journey (distance) ever operated was SQ21 Newark – Singapore (15,345km) and took 18h50m (ouch!). This route was flown by a A340-500 (max range 16,670km).

SQ37, LA – Singapore (14,114km) took 18h05m flown on an A340-500. This journey is almost an hour longer than QR921 Auckland – Doha (14,524km / 17h35m) currently flown on a 777-200LR. Both routes are about equal in distance and the direction of travel is the same. The time difference can be attributed to cruising speeds of each aircraft: 777-200LR = 1037km/h vs. A340-500 = 945 km/h — about 100 km/h slower.

Shortest distance (by active routes)

Download chart.

Rank (dist.)	From To	Flight Number	Distance (km)	Scheduled duration (min)	Aircraft Type
10	Kos-Kalymnos	A3 7036/7037	23	20	De Havilland Canada Dash 8
9	Karpathos-Kasos Island	OA 34	22	5	De Havilland Canada Dash 8
8	Cayman Brac-Little Cayman	KX 4421	22	10	DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 300
7	Papeete (Fa’a’ā)-Moorea	VT 201	18	15	ATR 72
6	Saipan-Tinian	FP 101	17.4	10	Piper PA-31 Navajo
5	Connemara-Inishmaan	RE-XXX	16.8	6	Britten-Norman Islander
4	Hoʻolehua (Molokai Airport)-Kalaupapa	LW 270/280/290	14.2	10	Cessna 208B Grand Caravan
3	Minami-Daito-Kita-Daito	RAC835/RAC836	12	15	Bombardier Dash 8
2	Caye Chapel-Caye Caulker	MW 2100	3.8	2	Cessna 208 Caravan
1	Westray-Papa Westray	LOG312/LOG313	2.73	2	Britten-Norman Islander

Full ranking.

Anyone who has spent 17 hours on a plane knows how tough it can be on the body. That said, flights where you spend longer in the airport then in the air can be frustrating.

The shortest route flown by time and distance is between Westray and Papa Westray in Scotland. The distance is 2.73km and the flight takes just 2 minutes. It’s a hotly contested route for airlines. In 2013 a one-way ticket was priced at £21 (a brief search did not uncover recent prices).

Interestingly, the 9th shortest flight by distance, Karpathos-Kasos Island (22km), takes just 5 minutes on the De Havilland Canada Dash 8.

Did you know? The shortest routes (distance) currently flown are: 3. Minami-Daito – Kita-Daito (12km / 15m), 2. Caye Chape – Caye Caulker (3.8km / 2m), 1. Westray and Papa Westray (2.73km / 2m).

Did you know? The shortest routes (time) currently flown are: 3. Karapathos – Kasos Island (22km / 5m), 2. Caye Chape – Caye Caulker (3.8 / 2m), 1. Westray and Papa Westray (2.73km / 2m).

Improvements

I would like to compare how the flight duration differences changed based on average cruising speed of different aircraft.

tl;dr

On 5 February 2017, Qatar Airways started nonstop flights between Doha and Auckland, making this flight the longest in the world. The flight covers 14,524 kilometres and is operated by Boeing 777-200LR aircraft.

Footnotes

1. Data sources + data used in this post.

Well, what a weekend it has been for British Airways.

Thankfully I wasn’t travelling out of Heathrow, my local airport, due to the long weekend here in the UK. However I do know of many friends who’ve had their holidays ruined by the “IT failure” that led to the mass cancellation of flights on Saturday and Sunday by British Airways.

The airline has been going through heavy cost-cutting over recent years. I’m almost certain the events this weekend have wiped out any savings they’ve made. Their share price has dropped by £175mm alone. Though how much might this fiasco directly cost the airline?

Methodology

Airhelp, a company that helps travellers claim compensation for flight delays and cancellations, put together a dataset detailing British Airways flights and estimated passenger numbers for scheduled departures this weekend (27/05/2017 – 28/05/2017) from airports around the world.

In this dataset they split out delayed flights and those that were cancelled. If you booked a flight that departed from Europe or was with a European airline, you  have rights under EU law if your flight is delayed or cancelled. The amount that can be claimed is determined by length of delay, length of flight and wether the flight was cancelled completely.

Using this data it was possible to estimate British Airways’ potential liability for passenger compensation for Saturday (27/05/2017) and Sunday (28/05/2017).

All figure are quoted in Euro’s (EUR).

Results

Worst affected airports (by passengers delayed / cancelled)

Tot affected pax rank	Airport	Tot delayed pax	Tot cancelled pax	Tot affected pax
1	LHR	2829	46303	49132
2	LGW	444	4392	4836
3	AMS	284	1153	1437
4	EDI	222	1210	1432
5	JFK	0	1404	1404
6	GLA	243	1072	1315
7	NCE	57	1210	1267
8	GVA	358	847	1205
9	FCO	162	1020	1182
10	DUB	201	910	1111

Full list.

Passengers at LHR (Heathrow), British Airways’ UK hub, saw the worst of the problems. In total 49,132 passengers suffered, 46,303 of them has their flights cancelled.

LGW (Gatwick) was the second worst affected airport for cancelled and delayed flights. 4,836 passengers were affected in total, a much lower number than at Heathrow.

Worst affected airports (by estimated compensation liability)

tot compensation rank	Airport	2705 tot compensation (eur)	2805 tot compensation (eur)	tot compensation (eur)	tot pax
1	LHR	16,819,509	4,414,834	21,234,343	49132
2	LGW	2,067,489	32,324	2,099,813	4836
3	JFK	891,252	–	891,252	1404
4	DXB	–	515,516	515,516	668
5	HKG	–	477,353	477,353	619
6	SFO	435,586	–	435,586	686
7	EDI	160,470	265,370	425,840	1432
8	AMS	171,197	253,900	425,097	1437
9	GLA	149,743	240,866	390,609	1315
10	GVA	180,207	168,398	348,605	1205

Full list.

Unsurprisingly Heathrow tops the list with a potential liability of €21,234,342.77. This equates to €7373 per minute in compensation (21mm / 2880 min)! Ouch.

Remember, one variable that affects the amount of compensation you can claim is the distance of a flight. As BA tend to fly in/out of the UK, passengers flying from/to airports further away from the UK can typically claim more. This is why flights departing from airports like Hong Kong have high total compensation liabilities (€477,352.64) in comparison to passenger numbers (619).

Overall, the average compensation liability per airport was €245,448.

Worst affected countries (by estimated compensation liability)

Liability rank	Country	eligible flights	eligible seats	eligible pax	liability (EUR)
1	GB	754	135500	109890	43,490,141
2	US	66	19767	16031	9,618,622
3	FR	78	11322	9182	2,414,753
4	ES	62	9845	7984	2,208,475
5	IT	66	9980	8094	2,187,186
6	DE	59	7876	6387	1,596,859
7	CA	10	2994	2428	1,457,019
8	IN	11	2808	2277	1,366,148
9	GR	24	3840	3114	1,245,696
10	AE	8	2182	1770	1,061,956

Full list.

As British Airways operates out of the UK, it is unsurprising to see compensation liabilities and passengers affected to be highest from British airports. Passengers flying British Airways from the US were the second worst affected (16k passengers / € 9.6mm compensation liability). There were significantly more affected BA passengers from the US than other countries (excluding the UK).

Average claim amounts

Download chart.

There is a fairly even spread of maximum compensation passengers are eligible to claim.

Typically airports a long distance from the UK – for example DXV, PVG, HKG – have the highest average amount passengers can claim in compensation (€771.43) as discussed above.

European airports typically have the lowest amount passengers can claim in compensation (€264.53) due to their distance from the UK (or total flight time).

Total liability

	tot affected flights	tot seats	tot pax	tot compensation (eur)
Sat 27/5	515	95607	77537	€ 34,193,780.20
Sun 28/5	243	43273	35094	€ 15,476,631.72
Total	758	138880	112631	€ 49,670,411.92

Full table.

In total it is estimated British Airways “IT failure” affected 758 worldwide flights with 112,631 passengers due to fly on them.

Based on EU compensation rules, BA is potentially liable to pay €49,670,411.92 in passenger compensation for the two days of delays and cancellations this weekend. Or €17,246 a minute (49.5mm / 2880 min)!

tl;dr

BA is potentially liable to pay €49,670,411.92 in passenger compensation for the two days of delays and cancellations this weekend.

Footnotes

1. Data sources + data used in this post.

Passengers bumped on overbooked flights has been in the news ALOT recently.

Many flyers on EU airlines (or from EU countries) are becoming privy to the fact they could be eligible to claim compensation for delayed flight in Europe. Airhelp, a company that helps passengers claim compensation from airlines, advises delays over 3 hours are typically eligible for compensation.

If you live in the UK you’ll be aware of the huge liability banks have had for PPI payouts in the last 10 years. With many airlines operating on the brink of bankruptcy according to some sources; how much are airlines potentially liable for in compensation payouts?

Methodology

Airhelp, a company that helps passengers claim compensation for delayed flights, provided me with a dataset of airports around the world, number of delayed flights (and seats) eligible for compensation, and a calculated estimate of what the total potential liability was for each airport for compensation during 2016 (based on regulation EC261 which covers delayed, cancelled and overbooked flights). Note, compensation is paid by airlines, not airports. Therefore, this post highlights the airports with the highest number of delays, over-bookings, etc, but is not split out to consider individual airlines.

Whilst the dataset covers a large number of airports around the world (5000), only a subset of airports have data for delayed eligibly (574). This is for 2 reasons; 1) compensation rules differ around the world (see EU vs. US, for example) therefore it is difficult to produce accurate estimates for each geography. 2) Airhelphas a commercial interest in the EU market.

Airhelp provided monetary data in Euro’s (EUR). To keep currency consistency with my other posts on this blog I have converted all figures to US Dollars (USD) using the exchange rate of 1 EUR = 1.09 USD (correct 30th April 2017 via xe.com).

Additional datasets used were from the FAA (US) and CAA (UK) for total aircraft movements at each airport (to calculate the percentage of delayed flights within the US and UK). This data did not differentiate between arriving and departing flights (only departing flights are considered for compensation eligibility), I therefore assumed 50% of operation were departures (roughly in line with LHR figures).

Results

Spread of liability by airport

Download chart.

The majority of airports were liable for less than 10 million in compensation during 2016 (241 airports), though 61 airports were liable for more than this.

241 airports were liable for more than 1 million USD, and 455 liable for over 100K USD, and 566 liable for over 10K USD. Only 9 were liable for less, with VST Stockholm Vasteras Apt bottom of the list with a liability to 14 passengers totalling $3815 USD (avg. $272.50 USD each).

The compensation liability for all airports considered (574) is 3 billion USD ($3,001,339,552.25 USD).

Top 10 airports by liability

rank liability	airport code	seats eligible for liability	liability USD 2016 30Apr17	Seats per flight eligible for liability	Avg. Compensation per seat USD 2016 30Apr17
1	LHR	544,343	265,998,150	167	488
2	CDG	370,152	168,216,158	157	455
3	FRA	284,619	118,030,459	143	414
4	MAD	256,543	98,339,909	144	384
5	AMS	250,153	95,679,110	121	383
6	LGW	239,801	87,262,730	143	364
7	JFK	120,174	78,582,024	192	654
8	MUC	235,045	78,321,378	111	334
9	CPH	200,177	70,264,152	121	351
10	BCN	187,368	61,357,899	147	327

Full list.

The top 3 airports (by liability) accounted for 0.5 billion USD of total liability for ll airports ($552,244,766.75 USD). The top 10 airports accounted for 1.1 billion USD of total liability ($1,122,051,967.75 USD), or one-third of total liability.

Airlines who flew out of Heathrow LHR during 2016 were liable for passenger compensation claims to the tune of $0.25 billion USD ($265,998,150.00 USD) — unsurprising given capacity issues at the airport.

Spread of delays

If you booked a flight that departed from Europe or was with a European airline, you might have rights under EU law if your flight is delayed to claim the following compensation:

Delay to your arrival	Flight distance	Compensation USD 30Apr17
3 hours or more	Less than 1,500km	272.50
	Between 1,500km and 3,500km	436.00
	More than 1,500km and within the EU	436.00
3-4 hours	More than 3,500km, between an EU and non-EU airport	327.00
4 hours or more	More than 3,500km, between an EU and non-EU airport	654.00

Full table.

Download chart.

Average compensation per seat groups at both end of the spectrum, 175 airports owe an average of $270 – $300 USD per seat (lowest claim possible is $272.50 USD), 174 owe an average of $630 – $660 USD (max claim possible is $654 USD). Note, values are per seat (not passenger) this is because a passenger can be delayed multiple times per year and thus eligible for more than one compensation claim.

Worst performing airports for on-time departures (US /  UK only)

rank liability	airport code	departures est	flights eligible for liability	% flights liable	seats eligible for liability	liability USD 2016 30Apr17
1	LCY	42,585	953	2.24%	55,838	15,336,355
2	LHR	237,482	3262	1.37%	544,343	265,998,150
3	LGW	140,333	1677	1.20%	239,801	87,262,730
4	ABZ	48,078	541	1.13%	23,151	6,319,139
5	SOU	21,412	224	1.05%	8,018	2,205,343
6	EDI	61,110	609	1.00%	48,585	14,382,632
7	GLA	49,064	459	0.94%	24,779	7,058,731
8	BHX	56,592	506	0.89%	41,785	12,705,858
9	LBA	22,152	183	0.83%	7,727	2,348,432
10	NCL	28,132	231	0.82%	11,767	3,738,673

Full list.

UK airports make up all 10 of the worst airports for departure operations by compensation liability. 2.24% of flights taking of from LCY London City Airport were liable for compensation claims from passengers.

Note, this dataset only contains US and UK airports for comparison.

Improvements

There are two clear improvements that can be made to allow for a more comprehensive analysis.

Firstly, having access to addition compensation data for more airports with local compensation rules (vs. just EU) could provide interesting analysis into best regions for compensation, worst regions for liability, etc.

Secondly, accurate operations departure data for all major worldwide airports would improve calculations. Due to the datasets used, the above workings only consider some US airports and UK airports, whilst also use estimated commercial departure figures (departures=total commercial operations / 2).

tl;dr

Airlines who flew out of Heathrow LHR during 2016 were liable for passenger compensation claims to the tune of $0.25 billion USD ($265,998,150.00 USD). The compensation liability for all airports considered (574) is 3 billion USD ($3,001,339,552.25 USD).

Footnotes

1. Data sources + data used in this post.

It is very likely you’re within 50km of an airport — even if it’s a very small one.

Passenger volumes continue to rise year-on-year, and newer, larger airports are needed to keep up with demand. My local major airport, London Heathrow (LHR), claims to operate at 98% capacity.

London alone has 5 major airports, and many fast growing commercial ones such as London Southend (SEN). Although if it’s actually in London is debatable!

With a recent inquisitiveness about airports, I began questioning. How many airports are out there? Where are they? Here are some interesting statistics.

Methodology

OurAirports maintain a comprehensive document of airports around the world. It currently lists over 46000 airports and includes information such as location, elevation, runways, and identification codes. This data was used to perform all analysis.

Analysis

Airports by country

Rank by airport count	country	count_airports
1	United States	21487
2	Brazil	3833
3	Canada	2434
4	Australia	1879
5	Russia	919
6	France	789
7	Argentina	710
8	Colombia	701
9	Germany	663
10	Venezuela	592

Full list.

Perhaps to be expected the US has the most airports, but I did not expect it to be almost 18,000 more than the second placed country, Brazil. Although most of the airports in the US are classified a small (private) airports, 21.5k airports is still a huge number!

Worlds highest / lowest airports

elevation_rank	type	name	country	elevation_ft	elevation_mt
1	heliport	Siachen Glacier AFS Airport	India	22000	6,706
2	small_airport	Daulat Beg Oldi Advanced Landing Ground	India	16200	4,938
3	small_airport	Laguna Choclococha Airport	Peru	14965	4,561
4	small_airport	Fausa Airport	Peru	14809	4,514
5	small_airport	San Rafael Airport	Peru	14422	4,396
…	…	…	…	…	…
46231	small_airport	Brawley Municipal Airport	United States	-128	-39
46232	small_airport	Ein Yahav Airfield	Israel	-164	-50
46233	small_airport	Cliff Hatfield Memorial Airport	United States	-182	-55
46234	small_airport	Furnace Creek Airport	United States	-210	-64
46235	medium_airport	Bar Yehuda Airfield	Israel	-1266	-386

Full list.

To give this some perspective, Mount Everest stands at 8848 meters — just 2000 meters higher than Siachen Glacier AFS Airport, India. In fact, this airport (heliport) would rank just outside the top 100 highest mountains. Sadly, it only serves a military purpose, but all credit to the pilots flying at that elevation! The highest large airport is Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport in Peru at 3310 meters above sea level.

At the other end of the scale, Bar Yehuda Airfield in Israel lies 386 meters below sea level. The English Channel is only 120m deep.

Worlds longest runways

runway length rank	type	name	country	length_ft	length_mt	surface
1	seaplane_base	Pontiac Airpark Water Aerodrome	Canada	120,000	36,576	water
2	seaplane_base	Gunflint Seaplane Base	United States	30,000	9,144	water
3	seaplane_base	Libby Camps Seaplane Base	United States	26,000	7,925	water
4	seaplane_base	Brookville Reservoir Seaplane Base	United States	25,000	7,620	water
5	seaplane_base	Long Lake Seaplane Base	United States	25,000	7,620	water
6	seaplane_base	Conchas Lake Seaplane Base	United States	21,120	6,427	water
7	medium_airport	Qamdo Bangda Airport	China, People’s Republic of	18,045	5,500	concrete
8	seaplane_base	Goddard Seadrome Seaplane Base	United States	17,000	5,182	water
9	medium_airport	Ulyanovsk East Airport	Russia	16,404	5,000	concrete
10	medium_airport	Pierre Van Ryneveld Airport	South Africa	16,076	4,900	asphalt

Full list.

No that’s not a typo, Pontiac Airpark Water Aerodrome has a runway that’s 36.5 km long (it is water runway for seaplanes). The longest traditional runway is at Qamdo Bangda Airport in China at 5.5km. The runway needs to be so long because of the elevation of the airport (4333m). When the air is thinner (at altitude) it takes longer for a plane to take-off and land.

The runway at Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport in Saba (in the Caribbean) runs a mere 396m, making it the world’s shortest commercial runways (excluding heliports).

Improvements

I would be very interested in analysing how much traffic some of the runways with notable characteristics receive and any associated accident information, especially those with a high elevation.

tl;dr

The United States has 21.4k airports. That’s almost 18k more than any other country.

Footnotes

1. Data sources + data used in this post.

$1,911,494,699,999 USD to be exact.

I don’t need to tell you jet planes are expensive. Very expensive. Spoiler alert: you (probably) can’t afford one.

That said, commercial airliners are abundant as a quick look on Flightradar24 will confirm.

At hundreds-of-millions a piece; what is the value of the current fleet of commercial airliners in the sky?

Methodology

I used the average cost of a commercial jet model as supplied by the manufacturers who dominate the commercial market, Airbus and Boeing.

Fleet data was obtained from AirFleets for the SkyTrax top 100 airlines (2015).

Total price values were calculated using average cost of model and most popular model variation in operation. For example, count of the more popular A350-800 was used over the A350-1000 variant.

Aircraft data (seat numbers) was obtained from Wikipedia.

Analysis

Most expensive planes

Download chart.

Unsurprisingly the massive Airbus A380 is the most expensive commercial airliner. All of the top 10 planes by price are worth more than $300 million USD each.

Most expensive cost per seat

Download chart.

The A380 represents represents a high cost efficiency per seat (rank 15th @ 0.82$ million USD / seat).

The A350-1000, 777-9, and 777-200LR all have per seat values of over $1 million USD (cost / number of seats). This is a rough calculation assuming the maximum number of seats are installed (in many cases this does not happen).

Total value of planes by type

Download chart.

Did you know? The cost of planes for all of SkyTraxs top 100 airlines (new) is $1,911,494,699,999 USD. 

The Boeing 777 ($340 million / each), 1214 in operation , have a cumulative new value of $412,274,400,000 USD (412 USD billion).

The cheaper 737s ($110 million / each), of which there are 3471 planes in the sky (25% of all commercial aircraft) (almost 3x the 777), have a total combined value of $381,810,000,000 USD (382 USD billion). Southwest operates 710 737s. Bought new these would cost $78,100,000,000 USD (78 USD billion).

Boeing versus Airbus

Download chart.

Although Airbus offers the most expensive plane for sale (the A380 @ $432 million USD), the new cost of all Boeing planes in the sky is much higher than Airbus.

There are over $1 trillion USD of planes flying from Boeing (one trillion sixty-eight billion seven hundred thirty-one million seven hundred thousand), whilst Airbus has just $800 billion USD (eight hundred forty-two billion seven hundred sixty-three million).

Improvements

All the calculations and variable values (plane cost, seats on aircraft, ticket cost, etc) are nowhere near accurate and should only be taken as a generalisation.

Should true data be obtainable, values for these variables would greatly improve the accuracy of all data and calculations used in this post.

tl;dr

The cost of planes for all of SkyTraxs top 100 airline (new) is $1,911,494,699,999 USD. 

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.