Wannabe From United States of America, joined Jun 1999, 675 posts, RR: 3 Posted (4 years 2 months 2 weeks ago) and read 33467 times:
Can anyone tell me about how many flights cross the Atlantic between North America and Europe every day, both directions? I am helping my daughter with a math analysis project for homework, and she is looking at air safety in overseas travel.
BCAL From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2004, 3384 posts, RR: 18 Reply 1, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 6 days 7 hours ago) and read 33149 times:
Before Open Skies in March last year there were 385 flights per day in each direction and 235 nonstop city-pairs served by 45 airlines comprising eight from the US, 26 from the EU and 11 other, according to AEA.
There has been a previous thread on the topic but this is out of date since it was posted in 2005. However with the global downturn and services scaled back this might give some rough indications.
GhYHZ From Canada, joined Feb 2008, 200 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 32721 times:
And since most flights are overnight eastbound.......anyone care to speculate how many people are "up there" over the North Atlantic at midnignt on a typical evening?
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21488 posts, RR: 24 Reply 6, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 6 days 3 hours ago) and read 32611 times:
I recall a recent article on air traffic control procedures on the North Atlantic. It mentioned that approximately 1,000 flights cross the Atlantic every day. The total was something over 400,000 flights a year. That includes all types of flights -- airline, corporate, private, military etc. But the vast majority are airline flights.
Thestooges From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 8, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 32077 times:
This is always a hard question to answer because should it refer to just flights from the USA to Europe or from North America to Europe. And what does North America mean, should it mean just Canada, the US and Mexico or should it include all of Central America as well as the Carribean which would be more geographically correct? Central America is definitely part of the North American continent but many people don't really see it as such. Would you consider Bermuda to be part of North America, what about Triunidad and Tobago ? And then for Europe, how do you define that, would you include Morocco, its very close indeed, sure its part of Africa, but its a lot closer to Malaga in Spain than Dakar in Senegal ?Flights from North America to the Middle East are of a very similar nature especially to Amman and Tel Aviv, should they be included as well ?
But then maybe the question should be about trans-atlantic flights, which would then of course include flights between South America and Europe and then all flights from North America to the Middle East and Africa. But then how would you define a flight like ORD to DEL, which doesnt really end up flying over the Atlantic anyway, but more over the North Pole ?
Gr8Circle From Canada, joined Dec 2005, 2987 posts, RR: 4 Reply 9, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 31894 times:
Quoting Thestooges (Reply 8): This is always a hard question to answer because should it refer to just flights from the USA to Europe or from North America to Europe. And what does North America mean, should it mean just Canada, the US and Mexico or should it include all of Central America as well as the Carribean which would be more geographically correct? Central America is definitely part of the North American continent but many people don't really see it as such. Would you consider Bermuda to be part of North America, what about Triunidad and Tobago ? And then for Europe, how do you define that, would you include Morocco, its very close indeed, sure its part of Africa, but its a lot closer to Malaga in Spain than Dakar in Senegal ?Flights from North America to the Middle East are of a very similar nature especially to Amman and Tel Aviv, should they be included as well ?
Now this is getting more and more similar to the agony felt by a lot of people (inculding me) when N.Americans tend to refer to countries in the Far East as "Asian" countries, completely ignoring the existence of the India sub-continent and the 'Middle East, which are as much Asia as are China, the Koreas, Thailand and other countries in the FE which are normally referred as "Asia" by the average N.American......it's a matter of usage and common acceptance of a term in different parts of the world....
CitationJet From United States of America, joined Mar 2003, 2235 posts, RR: 3 Reply 10, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 31484 times:
That is also the case when some Americans consider states like Ohio to be in the "Mid West" United States. Those of us in Colorado and Kansas consider ourselves to be in the Mid West.
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6626 posts, RR: 17 Reply 11, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 31064 times:
Quoting Thestooges (Reply 8): This is always a hard question to answer because should it refer to just flights from the USA to Europe or from North America to Europe. And what does North America mean
And what does "Europe" include? Does it include the flights to BOS, JFK. MSP, YHZ and YYZ flown from Iceland and are there any flights from Greenland to "North America"?
RobertS975 From United States of America, joined Aug 2005, 890 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 30828 times:
Quoting VV701 (Reply 11): And what does "Europe" include? Does it include the flights to BOS, JFK. MSP, YHZ and YYZ flown from Iceland and are there any flights from Greenland to "North America"?
Greenlandair used to fly a 757 to BWI... not sure they still operate the route.
KU747 From Kuwait, joined Mar 2008, 368 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 30395 times:
Quoting Aircellist (Reply 13): It seems nobody can answer this question yet.
Indeed, I thought I would see the answer for this question by now.
Well, lets make it harder, How about the total flights per day between the Americas (north and south) and Europe, Africa and the Middle East, in other words all flights that crosses the Atlantic??? and cross the Pacific???
Readytotaxi From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2006, 2596 posts, RR: 3 Reply 15, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 30340 times:
A while back someone posted an animated map of the world showing all movements over a 24 hr period, really cool. Now if it could be posted again all you would have to do is count the dots.
you don't get a second chance to make a first impression!
Cobra27 From Slovenia, joined exactly 12 years ago today! , 989 posts, RR: 0 Reply 16, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 30110 times:
I may be wrong, but I think I heard somewhere that around 1000 flights with around 200000 pax.
The majority in London
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6626 posts, RR: 17 Reply 17, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 29837 times:
Quoting Aircellist (Reply 13): It seems nobody can answer this question yet.
It's answerable but unless someone has already done the research it is a major, very time consuming research project. You first need to define both 'North America' and 'Europe' as previously discussed. You then need to recognise that every day of the week is different with many flights operating 6 or 5 days a week and that the 'missing days' are by no means always a Saturday and/or a Sunday. And there are many flights with lower weekly frequencies. Of course you can ignore this variability which may mean the end number does not reflect the actual situation on any day of the week.
As an example BA has up to 47 flights a day from LON to a total of 24 different destinations in 'North America' (as I would define it in response to the stated reason for asking this question). These flights are from LON to:
ATL , BDA, BOS, BWI, DEN, DFW, EWR, IAD, IAH, JFK, LAX, MEX (just 3 times a week), MCO, MIA, NAS, ORD, PHL, PHX, SEA, SFO, YUL, YVR, YYC and YYC.
As you will see I have not included flights to the Caribbean that some others might include, but I have included the Bahamas, Bermuda and Mexico that some others might exclude.
Recognising the thread starter's reasons for asking this question, it is my view that MEX certainly needs to be included as the LON-MEX great circle route crosses Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the eastern seaboard of New England and quite a large slice of south east USA crossing the Gulf of Mexico coast probably somewhere closer to Mobile than New Orleans.
The routing of aircraft flying to the Bahamas is to the south and east of most flights bound for continental North America. But nevertheless a BA LON-NAS flight is likely to travel a very similar routing to a BA LON-MIA flight close to or over the USA's eastern seaboard.
Flights to BDA will be still further to the south and east. But it seems to me that Bermuda is neither part of Central or South America so I have included it in 'North America'.
Extending the analysis further requires similar decisions on what constitutes 'Europe' and whether or not to include flights crossing the North Atlantic that originated to the east of Europe. The most important of these numerically is almost certainly flights between the USA and TLV.
GBan From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 18, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 2 days 11 hours ago) and read 29776 times:
Quoting Readytotaxi (Reply 15): A while back someone posted an animated map of the world showing all movements over a 24 hr period, really cool. Now if it could be posted again all you would have to do is count the dots.
This is the link to download a *A screensaver showing all *A flights:
YXD172 From Canada, joined Feb 2008, 427 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 29689 times:
Well, I'll try some of it by hand... Weekly flights from Canada:
YYZ -- 132 to Europe, 9 to India/UAE
YUL -- 75 to Europe, 8 to Africa
YQB -- 2 to Europe
YOW -- 10 to Europe
YHZ -- 4 to Europe
YEG -- 4 to Europe
YYC -- 27 to Europe
YVR -- 27 to Europe
Total from Canada: 281 to Europe, 8 to Africa, 9 to India and UAE
From the AmEx Skyguide, all for the end of February. I could try to get Mexico and the U.S. later but it might take a while.
Radial engines don't leak oil, they are just marking their territory!
AM744 From Mexico, joined Jun 2001, 1689 posts, RR: 0 Reply 20, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 29669 times:
Quoting VV701 (Reply 17): Recognising the thread starter's reasons for asking this question, it is my view that MEX certainly needs to be included as the LON-MEX great circle route crosses Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the eastern seaboard of New England and quite a large slice of south east USA crossing the Gulf of Mexico coast probably somewhere closer to Mobile than New Orleans.
I have to second that. For the purposes of your research, MEX-Europe flights join the US-Canada to Europe flightpaths somewhere over the Canadian Maritimes. There are at least 6 MEX-Europe flights every day:
MEX-MAD 3 daily
MEX-CDG 2 daily
MEX-LHR Almost daily if adding BA and MX frequencies
MEX-AMS 1 daily
and additional, non daily frequencies to MAD, CDG, FCO and BCN
Thule From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 97 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 29464 times:
GL cancelled weekly BWI to SFJ service after Summer 2007, citing financial reasons and "poor performance" despite full flights and despite the fact that GL recently posted a considerable profit, no doubt helped by its huge airfares and subsidies it gets from the Danish and Greenlandic governments.
7F operated weekly flights from YFB to SFJ until... 2006, I believe? Though Inuit politicians continue to lobby for its reinstatement due to the link's symbolic importance for the Canadian and Greenlandic Inuit.
There are also a few summer flights on Air Iceland from Iceland to destinations in Greenland.
Just wanted to clear this up, though I'm not sure it helps the topic much. I don't think we'll ever decide on whether Greenland counts as North America (which it is geologically) or Europe (which it is politically). It's up to you what counts as a trans-Atlantic flight and what doesn't when dealing with Greenland and Iceland.
Grimey From Ireland, joined Jun 2005, 434 posts, RR: 5 Reply 24, posted (4 years 2 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 29335 times:
Quoting Readytotaxi (Reply 15): A while back someone posted an animated map of the world showing all movements over a 24 hr period, really cool. Now if it could be posted again all you would have to do is count the dots
I have a download of that video on my computer, how do I get a Windows media file up on this thing? I have heard before that it is something like 900 flights across the atlantic each day, I think there was a programme on RTE about the air traffic control at SNN before and I think it mentioned something like 900 flights.
Quoting GhYHZ (Reply 5): And since most flights are overnight eastbound.......anyone care to speculate how many people are "up there" over the North Atlantic at midnignt on a typical evening?
Well 900 flights going eastwards, that would be nearly 200,000 people overnight (taking say 220 people on an average per aircraft)
When I leave my house in the morning during the summer, I travel eastwards towards Dublin city and all I see in the sky is all the contrails, sometimes I can see the aircraft clearly enough to see if its a BA or VS heading for England.
Grimey
25 Virginblue4: Flights from JFK - Europe, Africas, India and Middle East for today (Monday 16th March 2009) This is all from flightstats so apolgies if it is wrong!
26 Viscount724: It would be very easy if someone had access to the OAG MAX database of all flights worldwide which is updated continuously. It's widely used by airli
27 PHKLM: Coming summer there are 6977 weekly departures loaded into the world's schedules. This means that there are 3488 return-flights. On average, that mean
28 Cloudyapple: Where you should have looked is our monthly traffic press release. NATS handled 24317 transatlantic flights in January 2009. That is 784 per day or 3
29 Virginblue4: Thanks very much this will come in handy! Jordan
30 Cloudyapple: February's figures came in even lower: February 2009 (2008) Total Transatlantic Flights 21752 (24601) -11.6% Average Daily Transatlantic Flights 777 (
31 Lightsaber: Thank you for providing the numbers. What is the online link? That looks like data I'd love to look at as its released. But down 8.4% on the average
32 Cloudyapple: We publish traffic figures monthly and can be accessed via the link below. Simply add the numbers for transatlantic arrivals and departures and trans
Sponsor Message: 
From United States of America, joined Jun 1999, 675 posts, 
From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2004, 3384 posts, 
From Canada, joined Oct 2004, 1419 posts, 
From Australia, joined Dec 2006, 2701 posts, 
From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21488 posts, 
From Kuwait, joined Mar 2008, 368 posts, 
From Slovenia, joined exactly 12 years ago today! 
, 989 posts, 
From , joined Dec 1969, posts, 
From Mexico, joined Jun 2001, 1689 posts, 
From Colombia, joined Jun 2004, 4282 posts, 
From Serbia, joined Oct 2007, 1791 posts, 
From Ireland, joined Jun 2005, 434 posts, 
Printer friendly format 
