2023 in Flight

GOALS FOR 2023

In last year's year-end post, I set five goals for myself in 2022 with respect to my flights taken. Let's see how I did.

1. Achieve airline status. It need not be on Alaska again.

Did it again. On Alaska again. 2024 will be my sixth consecutive year with MVP status on Alaska. I didn't even come close on any other airline.

2. Avoid flying United.

By the letter of the law, I failed to achieve this goal. When flying to and from Vancouver in November, Air Canada was by far the cheapest option, and they outsource more than half of their daily non-stops to Vancouver to United, their Star Alliance partner. Of course, United operated the favorable schedule times. However, by the spirit of the law, I arguably managed to achieve this goal. Although I flew on United metal, I deliberately booked it through Air Canada.

The weird thing was, though, that when I attempted to add my United MileagePlus number to the reservation, I was unable to do so through Air Canada's online reservation management system. I even called Air Canada, and they were also unable to help me. I was able to add my United number, however, through United's app by entering the Air Canada confirmation number. Explain to me how that works?

Now, in spite of my (overblown) grudge against United, I will say that I was quite impressed with their IT. Their in-flight tracking, status updates, and phone sync was top-notch. Of course, that could be because I am used to Alaska's IT, which is absolute trash (not even by comparison).

3. Fly at least once a moth.

This is the one goal I achieved that I'm most proud of. I hadn't done this since 2018.

4. Get out of the country again.

I achieved this goal. I visited Mexico in July and Canada in November.

5. Hit four new airports.

Success. GEG, BOI, PVR, and LEB.

YEAR-OVER-YEAR TRENDS

 

 

40,580 miles flown in 2023, measured as great-circle distances in statute miles. 21% increase over 2022; 47% increase over 2021.

 

Coincidentally, 2022 was also a 21% increase over 2021.

 

 

40 segments flown in 2023. 25% increase over 2022; 82% increase over 2021.

 

 

Both the longest and shortest segments of 2023 occurred within the same trip. In December, I traveled to Boston for work, and while there, took a jaunt to Lebanon, NH on Cape Air. The day I returned home was the same day I did the Cape Air excursion, and since BOS-SFO is the same length as the converse route, I technically flew my longest and shortest segments of 2023 on the same day.

 

 

$7,167.62 in airfare paid in 2023, which considers the actual amounts charged to my card, inclusive of airline credits, miles used, taxes, and fees. 41% increase over 2022; 219% increase over 2021.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Last year, I changed how I accounted for the companion fare; I changed it to count the full single-ticket price, rather than the single-ticket price plus the companion fare divided by two, which it had been prior to last year. As I wrote last year's post, I was torn about how to count this, because, "recording the full single-ticket price is perhaps unrepresentative in that it suggests that I booked itineraries that I may not have otherwise booked." I concluded last year's discussion by saying, "Maybe I'll change it back next year."

I changed it back. This reversion adjusted the 2022 total when compared with last year's summary statistics.

 

 

This was the year that I started tracking operating carriers as well. Previously, I had only tracked marketing carriers. I began differentiating marketing from operating carriers solely so that I could argue that I flew Air Canada this year and maintained my non-United streak. Petty, I know.

 

 

 

 

MORE ON MILES

 

 

There you have it. Every month.

 

 

I've started adding notes to the graph themselves so that I don't have to spell things out in the captions.

 

 

Again with the marketing versus operating carrier.

 

 

Two years without a wide-body. Boring.

 

 

Still boring. Though at least I got a prop in there.

 

 

Also pretty boring, except for the C402. It was supposed to be a Tecnam P2012, but Cape Air made an equipment swap at the last minute. Which was just as well, because the particular airframe I flew was the Pride-branded airframe.

 

 

Flying back on Saturday from leisure trips is usually way cheaper than Sunday. And you get a full day to settle back at home before going back to work. I highly encourage traveling on Saturdays.

MORE ON MONEY

 

 

Yeesh. I still do not understand why ONT is such an expensive airport to fly into and out of.

 

 

"Lead time" is defined as how many days in advance of departure the ticket was purchased. The 215-day lead time purchase is not shown because it would distort the scale otherwise and make the other data points unintelligible. That was when I was on a travel-booking spree in May and booked my Christmastime air travel. It was so far in advance that the schedule was a phantom. The originally booked flight got cancelled, we got rebooked on a 6 AM departure, and then re-rebooked onto a 10 AM departure the next day. Finally, I called and re-re-rebooked onto a flight which had reappeared at about the same departure time as the original booking.

 

 

I guess I didn't have this graph last year. This is a fun one. The shapes are loosely concave.

 

 

Second year in a row with no ticket purchases on Saturday.

 

 

 

MORE ON WHERE

 

 

A "visit" is defined as a segment either originating or terminating at a given airport. So connections grant two visits to the connecting airport.

The size of the font is directly proportional to the number of visits.

We love a radial network. Along with a kite-shaped routing to and from BOI. Just because I wanted to pick up another new airport--GEG--along the way as an unusual connection.

 

 

Literally nothing on this list is a surprise. PDX-SFO received an arbitrary "honorable mention" distinction simply because it was featured quite a bit in 2023.

 

 

These represent both originating and terminating mode shares combined. Each color of bars sums to 100%.

"POV" also includes cases when I was picked up from or dropped off at the airport in another person's rental car. "Rental car" implies that I transited through the airport's rental car facilities, even if I walked or took a bus from the rental car center to the terminal. "Walk" typically covers cases where I am at a client site.

WHILE IN FLIGHT

 

 

I'd consider this a win.

 

 

A "pushback pause" is defined as the time when the aircraft is stationary after being pushed back from the gate. Specifically, it begins when the aircraft stops moving backward and the tug begins detaching, and it ends when the aircraft begins moving forward on its own power. Collecting these data were the reason I began a flight log at all. I sought to collect data around this specific statistic for use in simulation modeling.

 

 

I did much better with upgrades this year, though a lot of them were just on intra-California regional jet flights. Nevertheless, I'll take the free booze. 2023 was my wettest travel yet, surpassing 2019's 20 drinks consumed.

 

 

Thanks to my ASPM login, which grants me access to Individual Flights records, I was able to look up almost all prior flights in my log and obtain the tail number for each airframe. N296AK is the only airframe that I am aware of having flown three times.

 

 

 

RECORDS

A project I undertook this year was adding as many historical flights (i.e., before 2016) I could to my log. My access to ASPM Individual Flights, as well as my mom's digging into historical family travel reservations, helped me reconstruct several historical itineraries. This project was motivated by my introduction of Records last year, after which I realized that 2008 would become a contender for one of my busiest air travel years. Behold; here is how it stacks up as best I can tell.

Flying round-trip to Israel via connections through major international U.S. gateway airports gives you a pretty major leg up on setting a busiest month record.

This statistic speaks to how well distributed air travel is throughout the year.

Last year's version had SJU-SFO and LAX-SJU as the fourth and fifth longest segments, respectively. However, what I learned through my historical itinerary digging was that neither of these segments existed. We connected through DFW on these itineraries. (Originating at SFO and terminating at SJU on 1/1/2008 actually included two connections: LAX and DFW!)

Southwest continuing to come in hot. Also Cape Air, but I'm not fully convinced that the "pushback pause" is a thing on a little eight-seat C402.

This record was also updated to attribute credit to the operating carrier rather than the marketing carrier, which seems most appropriate.

ONT! Yikes!

As described earlier, I switched the accounting of costs back to be inclusive of the Alaska companion fare discount. This explains why the #1 lowest itinerary was shown as #5 last year.

When I was deciding to book a flight on Cape Air, I considered booking BOS-PVC roundtrip. This would have been an approximately $240 ticket. At 90 miles roundtrip, this itinerary would have far and away become the most expensive itinerary per mile flown, at over $2 per mile. Instead, I booked BOS-LEB roundtrip, which became the third cheapest full-fare single ticket (not per mile flown).

With this iteration, Virgin America, 2017, was booted from the top five in miles. Actually, it was technically booted in 2008, but this iteration of statistics is the first instance in which it fell off the list.

I am very glad that OAK-LGB made this list as a result of entering prior itineraries into the log. It is truly a tragedy that the days of $39 and $49 one-way fares on JetBlue between OAK and LGB are gone.

I am surprised that I have not flown a single route any more than 11 times in my life. That seems low.

I am surprised at the degree to which SFO leads OAK, despite the fact that OAK was my primary airport for 22 years of my life. But, I suppose I traveled far less in those first 22 years than in the following 8 years. I am also surprised that ONT is already my #3 airport.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2023

First time flying...

• ...on these aircraft types: C402C
• ...with these carriers: Cape Air
  
• ...to/from these U.S. states: Idaho, New Hampshire
• ...an EAS (Essential Air Service, a federal subsidy program) route: BOS-LEB and LEB-BOS

First time experiencing a flight cancellation! My return flight PDX-SFO on 3/21 was cancelled due to nasty weather at SFO all day. Originally, the gate agent had announced that the approximately 6:00pm scheduled departure was to be delayed by six hours. Instead, I left the gate area and spoke to an agent at the check-in desks to get rebooked onto a flight the next day rather than getting rebooked onto a flight to SJC that would land around 11:00pm.

First time submitting a credit card insurance claim for a delayed or cancelled flight. The incident described in the previous "first" was fully reimbursed by my American Express Gold Card.

Still no diversions or go-arounds.

GOALS FOR 2024

So. As I prepared the graphs of my annual statistics for 2023, I began feeling a little bit weird about all these data. It felt like a flex of privilege to compile all these statistics showcasing all the air travel I have taken. Perhaps it didn't bother me when I first started preparing these summary statistics after 2018 because that was the first time in my life I had gotten the chance to fly as much as I had. Now, it doesn't sit quite as well with me from an optics standpoint.

I will continue to collect and summarize my flight statistics. But perhaps I will be less forthcoming about showing the final results. And I think I would like to skip the goal-setting. This hesitance may be coming from sensitivity of the privilege required to achieve goals such as those I set for myself. Perhaps there is also some climate anxiety baked in there. Besides, my goals in recent years have become somewhat stale and repetitive anyway.

So, no goals for my air travel in 2024.