Some stats from 10 years of tracking flying

Around the time I started at Allovue I started tracking my travel with TripIt. There are a lot of advantages– most importantly, the quality calendar syncing with information like check in times and addresses of hotels, flight time, and flight information. One of those advantages is I have a lot of data, particularly about my flying. ¹

I am not sure that all of this data is 100% accurate– I may have missed a cancelled trip or leg along the way when I had to move things around– but to a first approximation, these stats are pretty good. And what’s even better is that my favorite flight tracking app, Flighty, syncs with TripIt and provides great summaries.

The very first flight I tracked was on Jun 27, 2014, when Elsa and I flew from my parents in New York (LGA, before it was nice) to Fort Lauderdale to meet up with her family before flying to Port Au Prince, to visit more of her family. So this post has some fun facts from 10 years of flying.

I have been on 447 flights totaling 443,966 miles (714,494 kilometers).

My total flight time was 48 days and 11 hours across 76 distinct airports and 12 airlines.

Wednesday is the day I fly the most– having racked up over 100 flights.

November is the month I fly the most at just under 75 flights. I travel the least in January– under 25 flights, followed by June and then December.

2016 was the peek of my flying at 72 total flights. Unsurprisingly, 2020 was the year I flew the least– though I still managed to take 8 flights before the COVID lockdowns and by 2021 I took 24 flights.

My longest flight was JFK (New York) to TPE (Taipei) clocking in at 7,794 miles.

My average flight time was just 2 hours and 26 minutes– I suspect this is so low because of the amount of Providence to Baltimore and back flights I’ve done, as well as quite a few Baltimore to Midway (Chicago).

I have flown in or out of BWI 320 times– the next closest airport is Providence at 91 times.

I have flown Southwest 395 of the 477 flights for a whopping 82.8% of all air travel (how’s that for loyalty!).

I have flown 210 distinct routes, with the most common, unsurprisingly, being PVD to BWI (at 42) and BWI to PVD (37). It’s pretty obvious that moving to Baltimore in 2016 had a profound impact on my flying.

I’ve only been to 11 countries in this time, which makes me sad, and shows how flying a ton domestically has reduced my time and energy for international travel.

I’ve lost 73 hours to delays, with 172 flights out of 477 (36%) having some kind of delayed arrival. But actually, 60% of my flights arrived early, so the “net” of delays and early arrivals is 8 hours and 37 minutes of delays.

The newest plane I flew on was just 25 days old, whereas the oldest was 31 years old, with an average age of 18 years old.