I am Wild about Flying and thanks to my friend Tony (see separate story), I have a very accurate record of my travel. This means I know for a certainty, that as at today’s date I have flown 812 times in my life- 111 times in 2011. Question: Do I need to fly 112 times next year? 111 times in a year is about twice per week. In total a scary 412 hours of my year was spent in aeroplanes- two and a half weeks!!
Distance Flown
I travelled 304 560 km (189 245 miles). That number is meaningless to me as a quantity but it is 7.6 times right around the earth!!! This is the most I have flown in my life and brought my total miles flown in my life to: 1,161,075 miles/ 1,868,569 kilometres. At current flying patterns, I will hit two million kilometres by mid 2012! Like to bet when?
The Overall Experience.
For me, flying was not quite as good an experience as it was in 2010, but way better than the first five years after September 11. My overall score for flying in 2011 was 4.3 out of 5 (86%). Flying is made more pleasurable for me by looking for the good in it, not checking bags in, having high frequent flyer status and seeking after exit row seats as much as possible. Its let down by crappy US airlines, US security lines and proceses (although TSA personnel are much happier now).
Greenhouse emissions
My plane travel resulted in a staggering 39.4 tonnes of greenhouse gas, which I offset 110% by purchasing 163 trees. We also added offset to some tickets as we bought them from the airlines. Its kind of like double dipping in a good way.
Airports Visited
The airports I visited the most were Melbourne and Sydney (Australia), Los Angeles, Auckland and Perth, I added a lot of new airports in the year mostly in South America and the Middle East.
Airlines Flown- Qantas drops from my most flown airline
In terms of the 27 airlines I used in 2011, the Virgin Australia group were the ones I was with the most travelling with them 20 times for 61 000 km. Qantas came second 15 times for 43 000km, While a lot, my Qantas flying has firmly dropped – see the table below of annual Qantas travel which shows a reduction from a peak of 61 to 43 to 15 flights over the last three years).
| Year | Distance | Hours | Flights | % of travel | Rating |
| 2011 | 43.391 km | 48:24 h | 15 | 14% | 4.6 |
| 2010 | 89.084 km | 126:25 h | 43 | 44% | 4.6 |
| 2009 | 149.610 km | 203:45 h | 61 | 48% | 4.3 |
| 2008 | 125.256 km | 164:37 h | 43 | 41% | 4.3 |
| 2007 | 65.228 km | 89:57 h | 26 | 35% | |
| 2006 | 57.159 km | 77:31 h | 23 | 53% | 5.0 |
I had quite a sour taste in my mouth about Qantas which I have blogged about previously. I am curious as to how many other Qantas Platinum customers have done the same reduction in travel.
New Airlines
Experienced Etihad for the first time (trip report to come), as well as V Australia (now part of Virgin Australia, Royal Brunei and Royal Jordanian and Korean Air. In total in my life I have now travelled with 81 airlines- some of which are defunct. See my blog tomorrow for my top (and bottom) airlines of 2011.
The Planes
The real excitement (for me) in 2011 was managing to time my 737th, 747th, 757th, 767th and 777th flights of my life to be on the aircraft of the same number. So my 737th flight was with Southwest for example on a 737 from Portland to Spokane. It was a brilliant flight! I was very excited by this achievement although I was a little disappointed that I didn’t manage:
- 707 – I don’t know John Travolta well enough to ask to go in his 707
- 717 – I didnt manage to get an Air Tran flight timing right
- 727 -The only airline with 727 in regular service is in Iran a
- 787- the first B787 flight ended up being after my 787th flight and despite lobbying efforts I did not get near it
The other was an additional three A380 products: korean, Air France (to come) and Lufthansa.
How was your 2011?
Related Posts
I did it! My 747th flight- in a 747!
My 757th Flight on a United 757-uber fail
Trip Report: Perfection 777th flight on an NZ B777
How I got hooked on Flightmemory.com
That is a staggering amount of flying my friend!
Fantastic! Love reading your blog. Happy new year and to the elusive search for love!
umm thinks MJ has a factual error – 2 millon K’s from 300 odd thousand is a big stretch are you going to live on a plane for the year hehe.
Hiya…sorry to confuse…..my total kilometres flown in my life is 1,868,569 kilometres. At current rate (averaging 18 000km a month), I will reach 2 million kilometres ever in 2012. I have no intention of flying 2 million in a year I promise!!!!!!