I've heard this statistic thrown around before, but is it true?

neomax wrote:

I've heard this statistic thrown around before, but is it true?

Source is ACI-NA, Airports Council International - North America.
They're the trade association & lobbying group for airports in North America.
USA Today lists them as their source for the 80% statistic.

“Boasting over 104 million passengers and growing 2.6% in 2016, the airport is within a two-hour flight of 80% of the United States' population,” ACI said about Atlanta’s airport in revealing its preliminary full-year passenger data.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/f ... 100654378/

The airport itself states the 80% stat on its own website, on the airport fact sheet: http://www.atl.com/about-atl/atl-factsheet/

Yes. Scroll down to other fact. http://www.atl.com/about-atl/atl-factsheet/

Probably not without catches. DL blocks 2.14 for NYC-ATL and a hair more than 2 hours for BUF-ATL.
That pretty much means 19.4 M in NYS are outside of 2 hour zone. Add 37 M in CA, 6.7 M WA, 3.8 M OR. THat is already 25% of US population.
Then Texas: Only 2 out of 8 IAH flights are scheduled 2.00, 6 are longer, HOU is 2.05 minimum. DAL and DWF are 2.04 minimum , AUS at least 2.07
That brings things down to 2/3 or so.

So things could be true with faster planes and less ground delays - by now 80% are not so true if DL schedules are to be believed.

There is no catch and your post shows you clearly understand the difference between flying time and block time, as any one on here should.

Probably the "two hours" is actual flying time, excluding ground taxi time.

kalvado wrote:

So things could be true with faster planes and less ground delays - by now 80% are not so true if DL schedules are to be believed.

But those are the scheduled times, right? What about actual flying time....time in the air from wheels up to wheels down. I would personally like to do some research on this when I get some time just to see what those quoted markets actual flying time is.

aeromoe wrote:

kalvado wrote:

So things could be true with faster planes and less ground delays - by now 80% are not so true if DL schedules are to be believed.

But those are the scheduled times, right? What about actual flying time....time in the air from wheels up to wheels down. I would personally like to do some research on this when I get some time just to see what those quoted markets actual flying time is.

THat is some fine print. In fact, 20M in NYC area is a significant chunk of US population, 7% or so - and saying either "it is scheduled for more than 2 hours" or "it can be faster" is what determines how true 80% are.
As for actual flying times, a quick search brought up todays DL ATL- JFK fliight with 1.56 gate to gate and 1.37 airborne times. Pretty sure TX markets would be similar.
So it really depends on how you measure those times...

kalvado wrote:

aeromoe wrote:

kalvado wrote:

So things could be true with faster planes and less ground delays - by now 80% are not so true if DL schedules are to be believed.

But those are the scheduled times, right? What about actual flying time....time in the air from wheels up to wheels down. I would personally like to do some research on this when I get some time just to see what those quoted markets actual flying time is.

THat is some fine print. In fact, 20M in NYC area is a significant chunk of US population, 7% or so - and saying either "it is scheduled for more than 2 hours" or "it can be faster" is what determines how true 80% are.
As for actual flying times, a quick search brought up todays DL ATL- JFK fliight with 1.56 gate to gate and 1.37 airborne times. Pretty sure TX markets would be similar.
So it really depends on how you measure those times...

Exactly.

There is no possible way that statistic could be correct, however you try to massage the numbers. And some simple math that you could do in your head would confirm that easily.

2 hours of flight time is going to be approximately 1,000 miles, give or take. I think that's actually being generous - that's assuming 500mph *average* ground speed between two airports, which never happens. It may happen traveling eastbound on some flights at cruise, but not when you take into account ascent/descent. But let's keep it simple here.

1,000 miles will not even get you to Salt Lake City, much less the west coast. If you add up all those western states that are more than 1,000 miles from ATL, it's approximately 80 million people. Most of Minnesota (including MSP), all of North and South Dakota and a lot of Nebraska is also out of reach. That's about another 7 million. Puerto Rico's another 3.5 million.

Then there's New England. Boston's debatable, but ok, I'll grant it (it's 936 miles - more than 2 hours in the real world, but not if you went a constant 500mph, which I'm doing for the purposes of this post, and for simplicity). Anything beyond that's pretty much off the table, though. So even if you only count Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, that's 3.5 million more people.

So now we're up to 93.5 million, which is already 29% of the population. And I'm sure I'm missing some people, like about half of Texas, probably 10 million more. And that's being super-generous and assuming an average speed of 500mph including winds, ascent/descent speeds, etc. Actual flights from ATL-BOS, for example, are around 2 hours and 30 minutes. Actual flights from Atlanta to Dallas (which I also allowed) are around 2 hours and 10 minutes.

So this statistic is just made up marketing BS. Even using my method of near-impossible average speeds, once you really counted everybody I doubt it'd be more than 65% of the population that ATL could reach in 2 hours. And if you were more realistic about average speeds, probably closer to 50%.

afcjets wrote:

There is no catch and your post shows you clearly understand the difference between flying time and block time, as any one on here should.

Wouldn't it be great if you used your energy to think about answering the question instead of ridiculing other people. As it turns out this is marketing BS and you've swallowed it whole. See spacecadet's post.

YOWza

yowza wrote:

afcjets wrote:

There is no catch and your post shows you clearly understand the difference between flying time and block time, as any one on here should.

Wouldn't it be great if you used your energy to think about answering the question instead of ridiculing other people. As it turns out this is marketing BS and you've swallowed it whole. See spacecadet's post.

YOWza

Thing is, it is NOT bullshit, it is an optimistic way of looking at things. Glass is half-full, you know..

All numbers in millions

population of usa 325.7
Alaska 0.74
Hawaii - 1.43
California - 39.5
Oregon - 4.1
Washington - 7.4
Nevada - 3.0
Arizona - 7.0

Those states are combined are 20.3% Thanks for playing ATL!

pedants of the world unite.

I think the ACI-NI meant to say, “At least 80% of all passengers flying to/from ATL have been delayed two hours on at least one occasion.” (Rimshot)

Oh boy, Beverly Hall caused irreparable damage. First, they don't know where they are located, east coast or south-east, now this.

I think STL would do far better if 2hr flight/1000 mile radius is used.

yowza wrote:

afcjets wrote:

There is no catch and your post shows you clearly understand the difference between flying time and block time, as any one on here should.

Wouldn't it be great if you used your energy to think about answering the question instead of ridiculing other people. As it turns out this is marketing BS and you've swallowed it whole. See spacecadet's post.

YOWza

That is great advice especially since many a.netters are young or have been here since they were 12. Since the member I responded to joined 12 years ago, he is likely an adult. If 2 hrs flying time doesn’t get ATL to 80 pct, block time sure as heck wouldn’t either, which is the point I was trying to make, especially when the poster I responded to pointed out using block time would exclude the largest city and metro area in the country. I don’t see how pointing out someone answered their own question is ridicule and if he did I apologize.

kalvado wrote:

aeromoe wrote:

kalvado wrote:

So things could be true with faster planes and less ground delays - by now 80% are not so true if DL schedules are to be believed.

But those are the scheduled times, right? What about actual flying time....time in the air from wheels up to wheels down. I would personally like to do some research on this when I get some time just to see what those quoted markets actual flying time is.

THat is some fine print. In fact, 20M in NYC area is a significant chunk of US population, 7% or so - and saying either "it is scheduled for more than 2 hours" or "it can be faster" is what determines how true 80% are.
As for actual flying times, a quick search brought up todays DL ATL- JFK fliight with 1.56 gate to gate and 1.37 airborne times. Pretty sure TX markets would be similar.
So it really depends on how you measure those times...

Unless the US population has dropped significantly, 20M is less than 7%.

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

neomax wrote:

I've heard this statistic thrown around before, but is it true?

Source is ACI-NA, Airports Council International - North America.
They're the trade association & lobbying group for airports in North America.
USA Today lists them as their source for the 80% statistic.

“Boasting over 104 million passengers and growing 2.6% in 2016, the airport is within a two-hour flight of 80% of the United States' population,” ACI said about Atlanta’s airport in revealing its preliminary full-year passenger data.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/f ... 100654378/

The airport itself states the 80% stat on its own website, on the airport fact sheet: http://www.atl.com/about-atl/atl-factsheet/

It's just ATL trying to market themselves that's all. No, the ATL airport is not within 2 hours flying time of 80% of the US population.

2 hours flying time is roughly 900 miles flying.

This puts Boston just outside of the 2 hour area along with many other Cities/States such as: Minneapolis, Denver, and anything west of San Antonio. 70% may be more like it but with Boston being outside of 2 hours even that may be a stretch.

dtw2hyd wrote:

I think STL would do far better if 2hr flight/1000 mile radius is used.

Many airports would. Including (gasp) the hub DL hates in DTW.

IPFreely wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

I think STL would do far better if 2hr flight/1000 mile radius is used.

Many airports would. Including (gasp) the hub DL hates in DTW.

DL hates DTW? Why? They have a world-class airport terminal there...shouldn't they like DTW?

What percent of the US population could you reach from ATL by taking off at 8a and arriving before 10a? That should get them above 80%.

https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm

Real easy to figure out with this

As one who has flown ATL/EWR-EWR/ATL multiple times I can tell share that the flight is under or at 1h 45min. Multiple times only being 1hr 30 mins.

The population has gone thru the roof out west , I bet it was true at one time maybe not now.

Additionally as others stated it's a very optimistic almost fake way to look at things, if you could somehow not taxi, have no wait, no windwinds. It's basically marketing B's and an exaduration 80% seems unrealistically high in 2018 . Are NY, VT, MA within two hours flight time? wheels up to wheels down yes in normal conditions. scheduled on any airline, no. It all depends on how you look at this.

It doesn't depend how you look at it or flight time vs. block time. Or what states have some airports 1.9 hours vs. 2.1 hours from ATL.

Just look at the far west states only that are way over 2 hours from ATL:

Alaska 0.7 million
Hawaii 1.4
California 39.5
Washington 7.4
Oregon 4.1
Nevada 3.0
Utah 3.1
Arizona 7.0
New Mexico 2.1
Colorado 5.6
Idaho 1.7
Wyoming 0.6

That totals 76.2 million which is more than 23% of the US population. And that excludes northern states, like MT, ND, SD, NE, MN, ME, VT, etc., in which many if not all airports are more than 2 hours from ATL. Marketing BS, nothing more.

I know the NSFW tag for not safe for work posts
What is the nerd alert tag, for this thread?

dtw9 wrote:

https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm

Real easy to figure out with this

I meant is ATL cheating on westbound flights that land in different time zones.

DFW17L wrote:

I think the ACI-NI meant to say, “At least 80% of all passengers flying to/from ATL have been delayed two hours on at least one occasion.” (Rimshot)

May I correct you, from

"have been delayed two hours on at least one occasion.”

to the more correct

"have been delayed at least two hours on most occasions.”

In old days cities used to fight not to have interstate or railroad tracks near their cities/towns to avoid transient population, now every city with an aviation hub wants them in millions.

spacecadet wrote:

There is no possible way that statistic could be correct, however you try to massage the numbers. And some simple math that you could do in your head would confirm that easily.

2 hours of flight time is going to be approximately 1,000 miles, give or take. I think that's actually being generous - that's assuming 500mph *average* ground speed between two airports, which never happens. It may happen traveling eastbound on some flights at cruise, but not when you take into account ascent/descent. But let's keep it simple here.

1,000 miles will not even get you to Salt Lake City, much less the west coast. If you add up all those western states that are more than 1,000 miles from ATL, it's approximately 80 million people. Most of Minnesota (including MSP), all of North and South Dakota and a lot of Nebraska is also out of reach. That's about another 7 million. Puerto Rico's another 3.5 million.

Then there's New England. Boston's debatable, but ok, I'll grant it (it's 936 miles - more than 2 hours in the real world, but not if you went a constant 500mph, which I'm doing for the purposes of this post, and for simplicity). Anything beyond that's pretty much off the table, though. So even if you only count Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, that's 3.5 million more people.

So now we're up to 93.5 million, which is already 29% of the population. And I'm sure I'm missing some people, like about half of Texas, probably 10 million more. And that's being super-generous and assuming an average speed of 500mph including winds, ascent/descent speeds, etc. Actual flights from ATL-BOS, for example, are around 2 hours and 30 minutes. Actual flights from Atlanta to Dallas (which I also allowed) are around 2 hours and 10 minutes.

So this statistic is just made up marketing BS. Even using my method of near-impossible average speeds, once you really counted everybody I doubt it'd be more than 65% of the population that ATL could reach in 2 hours. And if you were more realistic about average speeds, probably closer to 50%.

kalvado wrote:

aeromoe wrote:

kalvado wrote:

So things could be true with faster planes and less ground delays - by now 80% are not so true if DL schedules are to be believed.

But those are the scheduled times, right? What about actual flying time....time in the air from wheels up to wheels down. I would personally like to do some research on this when I get some time just to see what those quoted markets actual flying time is.

THat is some fine print. In fact, 20M in NYC area is a significant chunk of US population, 7% or so - and saying either "it is scheduled for more than 2 hours" or "it can be faster" is what determines how true 80% are.
As for actual flying times, a quick search brought up todays DL ATL- JFK fliight with 1.56 gate to gate and 1.37 airborne times. Pretty sure TX markets would be similar.
So it really depends on how you measure those times...

The claim was for Atlanta airport not Delta so it could also be two hours flight time for a Citation X. Or even a Concorde flying M0.99 due to supersonic cruise limitation

You know what's more impressive ?

DXB is within a 4 hour flight of 60% of the worlds population #HelloTomorrow

Delta757MD88 wrote:

As one who has flown ATL/EWR-EWR/ATL multiple times I can tell share that the flight is under or at 1h 45min. Multiple times only being 1hr 30 mins.

I flew ATL-JFK on Sunday morning and we were under 2 hours gate to gate. Things to remember: ATL-NYC is faster than NYC-ATL. I flew LGA-ATL in June and it was 1 hour 58 minutes take off to touch down. I flew JFK-ATL a week and a half ago and it was about 1 hour 40 mins take off to touch down. EWR-ATL will never be as short as 1 hour 30 minutes, but ATL-EWR can be. All depends on the jetstream, which lately is in a very odd position for July. NYC-ATL can have pretty strong headwinds.

neomax wrote:

I've heard this statistic thrown around before, but is it true?

No, hope this helps.

This brings up a few cynical adages from my market research days:

"Never trust a statistic you didn't make up yourself"
"Figures lie, and liars figure"

I guess it is a valid point that the statistic is pretty vague, ATL doesn't specify how they came up with the 2hr time, and it definitely is possible they messed around with it a bit. I guess the point they were trying to get across is that it hits a lot of big cities in a fairly short time. ATL-DC/NY/ORD/FL and many southern cities can easily be hit in roughly that timeframe which I have found to be true, although I live in FL so it is rarely more than an hour at most.

Noise wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

I think STL would do far better if 2hr flight/1000 mile radius is used.

Many airports would. Including (gasp) the hub DL hates in DTW.

DL hates DTW? Why? They have a world-class airport terminal there...shouldn't they like DTW?

It's a running a.net joke, because there are certain members who, with no basis in reality, think it's true.

It’s Marketing, not literal truth.

GF

Not even remotely true this is on of commercial aviation's biggest marketing lies.

C'mon guys, think in 4 dimensions. It was probably true in the 50s or 60s when it was first coined, but uneven growth and population migrations have made it less than accurate today.

Alaska 0.7 million
Hawaii 1.4
California 39.5
Washington 7.4
Oregon 4.1
Nevada 3.0
Utah 3.1
Arizona 7.0
New Mexico 2.1
Colorado 5.6
Idaho 1.7
Wyoming 0.6

Stunning to realize that in 1960 Califonia had less than 16 million people, Washington state was at about 2.8mm, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah and Nevada were each well under 1MM population, Colorado was under 1.8mm. If Florida had not ballooned from 4.9mm population in 1960 to over 21mm today, the 2 hour flight claim for Atlanta would probably be at under 70% of the US population, but with Florida's growth it probably remains in the 73-75% ratio. Looking into the future I suspect that the population growth rate in some of the water short western states will slow down, with a lot of the population and job growth in the next 10 years taking place in states like the Carolinas, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas as well as Georgia itself. Rising sea levels will probably dampen population growth in Florida as we saw in Louisiana following Katrina. Overall I see the Atlanta 2 hr flight figure climbing to the 75-77% level in the next 10-20 years. Now if we really have a lot of global warming Alaska probably has the space for a population of 100mm!!

exFWAOONW wrote:

C'mon guys, think in 4 dimensions. It was probably true in the 50s or 60s when it was first coined, but uneven growth and population migrations have made it less than accurate today.

If you take ground transportation, block times and TSA into account, 0% of the US population is within 2 hours flying time of anywhere.

This thread a much a do about nothing, that statement was made decades ago. Obviously things have changed tremendously.

Delta has indicated that one of its greatest decision was moving its main hub from Dallas to Atlanta. It is with in reach of so much. I think American has high hopes for Charlotte. Different size city.

CLT is probably closer to that stat than ATL.

neomax wrote:

I've heard this statistic thrown around before, but is it true?

Only up the eastern seaboard and west to Chicago. So you would have DFW, IAH.MEM, Nashville Lexington all of Ohio, PA, and the South East
OKC and west MSP and West. out of range..

iadadd wrote:

You know what's more impressive ?

DXB is within a 4 hour flight of 60% of the worlds population #HelloTomorrow

Really 4 hours is about 3500 km that doesn't bring us to the east of asia or the west of europe. 6 hours (flight FRA- DXB) sound more realistic but still then east of asia will still not be reached.

2 hours no. But its probably well over 65-70% Deltas Atlanta hub is almost in a perfect geolocation in the USA. It truely is an aviation juggernaut.

CV880 wrote:

CLT is probably closer to that stat than ATL.

Does CLT have an airport?

2 hours is < 900nm. So here is the 900nm range circle:


As someone who lives in the Western US, that as noted before is less than 80 percent, but is a great hub.

Is it the most ideal hub location? Probably not, but it is the largest US hub by far and has been for a long time.

ATL will gain a sixth runway and grow.

coronado wrote:

If Florida had not ballooned from 4.9mm population in 1960 to over 21mm today, the 2 hour flight claim for Atlanta would probably be at under 70% of the US population, but with Florida's growth it probably remains in the 73-75% ratio. Looking into the future I suspect that the population growth rate in some of the water short western states will slow down, with a lot of the population and job growth in the next 10 years taking place in states like the Carolinas, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas as well as Georgia itself.

I would add Florida to that list of growing states. There is still tremendous opportunity for growth in that state. I would also add Colorado back in. Growth is more tempered by business climate. For example, small businesses succeed more in Texas and Florida than most states (partially due to the high population growth).

I wouldn't rule out some growth in the west. I do expect ATL to maintain a prime hub location, in particular for that Georgia, Florida, and Alabama growth.
Naturally Texas growth will take advantage of DFW, IAH, and the AUS focus city.

Customers prefer direct flights and the A220 as well as RJs will allow that to continue (if there is a market the ULCCs do not identify first).
Lightsaber