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Thread: How many people are in the air at a given time?
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Old Nov 29, 2017 | 11:37 pm
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EuropeanPete
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Originally Posted by Flaflyer
Google brings up an opposite of FT blog ( please don't tell them about a MR, flying to go nowhere ) which mentions 300,000 over the US in 2005, which seems about right for a daytime hour if 2 million total fly. I'll guess US is half or more of world total, making 400,000 to 500,000 max in the air on a given day's peak hour, worldwide.
The US will not make up close to half of the world's total - it makes up a much smaller proportion of the world's middle/ high income. The EU and the US had pretty similar number of passengers in 2015 (~900M), with Asia somewhere around there as well.

Edit: The US looks like it makes up about 25% of airline traffic - actually more than I had expected.
http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pag...-12-06-01.aspx
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