Economic Data Tidbit -- Most Air Travel

Millions of passenger kilometers per year*

1 United States 1,238,952
2 China 201,948
3 UK 196,488
4 Germ 152,909
5 Japan 151,080
6 France 115,116
7 Austrailia 77,112
8 Canada 70,956
9 South Korea 69,276
10 Singapore 69,084
11 Netherlands 68,316
12 Hong Kong 66,168

Note: Numbers 2-11 added together is still lower than the United States alone. Don't get me wrong, because I love to fly and it is wonderfully convenient, but there is something wrong when approximately 300 million people are flying more than the NEXT (not even the bottom) 11 countries, or approximately 1.79 billion people. This data shows that the average American flys over 4K kilometers per year, while the average Chinese citizen flys around 150 kilometers per year. What happens if China catches up in this travel average? An increase to 1K kilometers per year (still the lowest average of this group) would increase the absolute kilometers from 200K to over 1300K.

There are obviously lots of environmental concerns out there, but our proclivity to fly everywhere and anywhere, all the time, seems to me to be a significant issue.

*From The Economist Pocket World in Figures, 2008 ed.