Amongst friends tonight, I was musing about airport security. More specifically, how for the hundreds of millions of people that board a flight each year, there are probably only about a hundred people in the world that want to blow up a plane.

The conversation then diverted to the exact numbers. The questions are all interesting. The first is probably documented, the others are what I found quite intriguing:

1) How many total UNIQUE passengers are there per year on all flights?
2) How many people actually are looking to cause terror on a plane themselves?
3) Of the number in point 2, how many are actually able to board a plane?

When pressed for numbers, I said:
1) 100,000,000
2) 100
3) 100 (I argued money/passport is not an issue at that stage)

I'm interested to get an answer to #1, and I am sure I will. I'm also very curious to see what others perceptions are on #2 and #3

Please follow in the TS/S Forum.
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

Well, I don't know about unique passengers per year, but ATL alone serves a total of 80 million + pax per year. I think worldwide, I've seen the number 2.2 billion passengers per year before, but I can't remember where. That's obviously nowhere near the unique number, but someone on FT has got to have a solid estimate from somewhere.

As for the second number, you can try searching for the average total number of suicide attacks worldwide per year. By their very nature they're unique. I think the conservative number would be to assume that everyone who has the resolve, mindset, nad motive to be suicide attacker probably is in an environment with the opportunity to do so since its that same environment leads them to arrive at that extreme one way or another.

IMO, an easier calculation would be total number of airline flights per year vs total number of terrorist attacks worldwide per year (hot war-related attacks excepted).

peace,
~Ben~