Over 150k Flights: Airlines Just Flew the Busiest Day in Recorded History

addaon

This feels like one of those cases where it’s safe to say “history” instead of “recorded history.”

datakan

With numbers like that I guess they have no reason to make flights more comfortable or convenient. I just did a cross country flight and back 2 weeks ago and I'm still recovering from it. I really hate flying now.

bestouff

Yes let's continue burning fuel. It's fine.

richwater

The new Airbus Project Sunrise aircraft also set the record for longest passenger aircraft flight

Wildgoose

This seems like madness to me. A fully loaded 747 has around 140,000 litres of energy-dense jet fuel containing between 2.2 and 2.9 GWh worth of energy - or around two hours output of a typical power station. This level of profligacy is simply not sustainable.

kbart

Modern aviation is an amazing engineering feat (all the environmental issues aside). With such numbers it means that "one in a million" failure occurs roughly evey week, but the fact that we have so little major incidents demonstrates how well aicrafts are engineered.

kilroy123

I was up in the air flying that day. It didn't seem busy at all. Everything was on time, quick, and smooth on both sides. My partner and I commented on how smooth everything went.

leaves83829

i don't understand how we can be setting new records on airflights at a time when there is a major oil crisis unfolding. oil isn't at 200$/barrel yet but you'd think even at 100$/barrel the price signals would cause at least some demand destruction. and wasn't there talk in europe of jet fuel shortages. and governments everywhere are supposed to run out of emergency oil supplies in the next 1 to 6 months? i'm a bit confused.

originalvichy

I’m worried that we will spend precious resources like oil on useless transport. I strongly believe that all of us who care deeply about the future of our civilization’s technological progress need to push for stronger limits on short fistance and low occupancy travel for air, land and sea. Even if you are not alarmed about the environmental impact of flights as a share of global emissions, it’s no reason to spend our global oil reserves for useless travel. Airlines already optimize flights and routes, but the gap can be closed even further if we simply let go of the immediate convenience of booking flights.