The chart above shows the number of passengers that traveled by air for every square mile in each EU and US region. The leading EU region has more than double the air passengers per square mile than the leading US region.
Findings
- The difference between the region with the greatest number of air travelers per area, the Western EU, and the region with the least, the Western US, is 1,370.11 per square mile.
- The Western EU has 10.52 times the number of air travelers per area that the Western US does.
- The difference between the EU region with the greatest number of air travelers per area, the Western EU, and the US region with the most, the Northeastern US, is 824.92 per square mile.
- The Western EU has 2.20 times the number of air travelers per area that the Northeastern US does.
- The Western has more air passengers per area than each individual state in the Southern US.
- The Western and Southern EU each have more air passengers per area than each individual state in the Midwestern US and the Eastern EU.
Caveats
- Travel data is from 2017.
- EU area data is from 2007, US area data is from 2010.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
- The Western EU consists of Germany, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
- The Southern EU consists of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta.
- The Northeastern US consists of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
- The Southern US consists of Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
- The Northern EU consists of Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
- The Eastern EU consists of Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
- The Midwestern US consists of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
- The Western US consists of California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
Details
Although the Western EU has the most air travelers by far, it ranks fourth when population is taken into account, and leads in this metric. The Northern EU, which in the per capita metric is first, ranks eighth out of eight when it comes to total air travelers, and fifth in this metric.
Of the regions whose area is larger than 500,000 square miles, the Western EU has the most air passengers per square mile followed by the Southern, Midwestern, and Western US.
Sources
Federal Aviation Authority. 2018. "Enplanements of All Commercial Service Airports (by Rank)." Accessed November 26, 2018. https://www.faa.gov/airports/planning_capacity/passenger_allcargo_stats/passenger/media/cy17-commercial-service-enplanements.pdf.
United States Census Bureau. September 2012. "United States Summary: 2010: Population and Housing Unit Counts." Accessed January 23, 2018. https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/cph-2-1.pdf.