U.S. Had One-Third of All Global Flights in 2014
The United States once again led in the number of commercial flights taking off on its soil in 2014, according to figures released by the World DataBank and the International Civil Aviation Organization, with 9.6 million flights. It has held the top position since ICAO began keeping track although the number of flights has declined slightly since hitting a high of 10.1 million in 2011.
A total of 36 million flights took off in 2014, or about 100,000 departures per day, and roughly one-third of them originated in America.
The figures cover “domestic takeoffs and takeoffs abroad of air carriers registered in the country.” American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, operated approximately 2.4 million flights in 2014, although this figure includes some departures that were not on U.S. soil.
The 2014 figure is nearly three times that of the country in the number two slot, China, which had 3.4 million departures. It is also almost twice as many flights as there were in the United States in 1980, the first year for which the ICAO data is available online, when there were 4.9 million departures.
Other countries in the top ten included Canada with 1.3 million departures; the United Kingdom with 1.1 million; Brazil with 937,000, Japan with 928,000; Germany with 913,000; Russia with 748,000, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2010; Turkey with 723,000, a figure that has also nearly doubled since 2010; India, with 720,000, and Indonesia, with 704,000, another figure that has nearly doubled since 2010.
Ireland, Australia, France, Spain, Mexico, Malaysia, Korea, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, and Colombia were in the top 20 as well.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
