Of all the activities people enjoy, flying is one of the most popular. Whether flying cross country or traveling overseas, people love to travel by plane.
In 2016, about 218 million air traffic passengers traveled to or from the United States. In that same year, commercial airlines carried more than more than 3.8 billion passengers and generated a global revenue of $501 billion US dollars. According to the FAA’s most recent data, there are 5,000 aircraft in the sky at any given moment and more than 2.5 million passengers pass through U.S. airports each day.
If there’s one group of Americans among which travel by airline flight is growing, it’s millennials. In fact 76 percent of millennials would rather spend their money on experiences rather than material things. Those experiences are best enjoyed by flying as millennials travel for a variety of reasons including food, culture and vacationing.
A 2016 survey by TopDeck Travel revealed that 69 percent of millennials were motivated to travel because of the desire to eat local foods. The same survey found that 98 percent of them said that eating local cuisine is very important when traveling.
For all of the enjoyment that people find taking an airline flight to a new place, there are some barriers to flying and those barriers lend themselves to many misconceptions about flying. These misconceptions can make people wary of flying, but it’s important to clear them up. Here are 3 myths about air travel have been debunked.
- Flying is bad for the environment: There’s no question that airplanes use a great deal of gas, but many modes of transportation leave some sort of environmental footprint.
The debate between planes being less fuel efficient or more fuel efficient doesn’t appear to quite be settled just yet, but here are some things to consider:- Bigger passenger flights can seat more passengers and on a per passenger basis, an airline flight is more fuel efficient than driving cross country in an SUV.
- While some cars are extremely fuel efficient, that isn’t true of all makes and models yet, so depending on the vehicle and the destination, taking a flight is the more fuel efficient option.
- With ever-changing gas prices, it can be much more cost-effective to fly from Detroit to Miami, rather than driving there.
- Flying isn’t safe: For as many people that enjoy flying, there’s a significant portion of the population that doesn’t. In fact, more than 20 million people have a fear of flying, also called aviophobia.
From being caught in the types of situations you see in movies such as Castaway and Airline Disaster, taking an airline fight is for all intents and purposes a safe experience. Modern aircraft is designed to be safe and can keep working even if things go awry. Planes are meant to handle obstacles such as bad weather and certain mechanical malfunctions and pilots are highly trained to be able to handle all sorts of situations.
Flying costs too much: It’s true that in some cases flying is expensive, but taking an airline flight to your vacation destination doesn’t always need to break the bank., especially with so many airline deals available.
Taking an overseas trip to a popular destination spot can get pretty pricey during the height of vacation season, but in the United States the cost of airline travel has fallen. Sites like Kayak and Expedia can help travelers find airline deals, cheap flights and can also package together hotels and rental cars.
It’s been established that millennials love to travel, but more than 50 percent of them say cost is a major travel barrier. Airline deals both internationally and domestically can help make flying more affordable.
Taking a flight somewhere should be an enjoyable experience. Prices can vary on flights, but overall an airline flight can be more fuel efficient and safer as technology has evolved and plenty of airline deals are available for you to get away for a while and take a vacation.
