Do you ever look above into the dark Lafayette night sky and see the small streak of the blinking lights of a jet in flight. Blink, blink and at times if you are away from the natural noise of the city you can hear the whistling or swoosh sound of the jet cutting through the dark ski.
You’re wondering why I even care about the fly-over-routes that pass above our state. The truth is nightly I stand in my backyard in Broussard and look up because I’m fascinated with the stars and lately I’ve been fascinated with the airline travel above my house. Some nights I see one, some nights I see none. But then there are nights I see 4 to 7 flight zig-zagging across the Acadiana skies.
And then I wonder who could be on that jet and where is the jet’s final destination? I’m always asking these types of questions, I have to admit though, air flight travel, planes, jet’s or anything with a fixed-wing or things that fly, I am totally intrigued and sadly I can’t explain why.
One thought leads to another and I started to wonder how many airline traffic routes fly in Louisiana skies? I did a little research and I found the answer to that question and even more interesting facts on airline routes across the country.
For the facts, I turn to USA Today, in 2018 a story was updated from the previous year on the states with the most and the least amount of air traffic in their skies. If you think about it, the answer would seem to be easy when trying to figure which states have the least amount of air traffic?
We will start there, the states with the least amount of flyover routes or traffic. This should be easy. Those two states would be Alaska and Hawaii. There are no routes from one U.S. state to another that traverse Hawaii or Alaska. Are you thinking of those two states? They get left out of so many discussions since they are not a part of the continental U.S.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, the states with the most flyovers? There is an equation for this from Champion Traveler and here is how you break it down. Take the total number of flights that fly over its airspace (a state) over a one year period and divided by the number of flights that arrive at one of the state’s airports, and there you have your answer. Champion Traveler even ranks each state by the amount of air travel within the border of the state.
And the top state with the most flyovers is West Virginia. The state is situated between two major hubs and has over 195+ times more flights over their state than as a destination. Let’s face it geography helps West Virginia in this case. Other states at the top of the list are Kansas at number 2 followed by Mississippi, Iowa, and Kentucky.
Louisiana ranked #20 on the list. Researchers also examined other factors when determining the state’s air traffic including lifestyle, quality of life and entertainment. The Bayou State has 4.2 times more flights over Louisiana than as a destination. You can view the complete list for all 50 states here.