The chart above shows the number of passengers that traveled by air for every resident in each US region. The West is the region with the most air passengers per capita in the US.
Findings
- The difference between the region with the greatest number of per capita air travelers, the West, and the region with the least, the Midwest, is 1.80.
- The West has 1.92 times the number of air travelers that the Midwest does.
- The West and the South each have more air passengers per capita than each individual state in the Northeast.
Caveats
- Travel data is from 2017.
- Population data is from 2010.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
- The Western US consists of California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
- The Southern US consists of Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
- The Northeastern US consists of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
- The Midwestern US consists of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
Details
Although the South has the most air travelers by far, it ranks second when population is taken into account. The West, which in this metric is first, ranks second when it comes to total air travelers.
The Northeast is the only region with a state that has no commercial airports.
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.