Originally Posted by 84fiero

Would that apply to number of miles flown, though? Airlines don't sell travel on a per-mile basis. And distance of a flight isn't necessarily proportional to the revenue for that flight. So even if 20% of passengers provide 80% of sales or profits, that likely wouldn't tie directly miles flown per person.

Are you thinking of lifetime miles flown or annual miles flown? And only scheduled commercial flights?

Is there any reliable data on total number of miles flown annually? You could make some educated guess I suppose, if you had a total figure to distribute. For example, in 2010 the census reported that 6.5% of the population was under age 5. While little ones do fly, I'd think the overall rate is pretty low. Another 17.5% are between ages 5 and 17, where the amount of flying would start to increase but still be fairly low...no idea how to guess the rate though. Same with older folks, who on an annual basis will generally fly less and less as they age.