2025 in Flight

It's nearly the end of Q1 2026. I've been sitting on these graphs for almost three months now and am just now getting around to publishing. I blame Blogger's interface, which is very clunky at importing images and messing with paragraph styles.

YEAR-OVER-YEAR TRENDS

49,343 miles flown in 2025, measured as great-circle distances in statute miles. 23% increase over 2024; 22% increase over 2023.

62 segments flown in 2025 (a new record!). 29% increase over 2024; 55% increase over 2023.

$10,144.88 in airfare paid in 2025, which considers the actual amounts charged to my cards, inclusive of airline credits, miles used, taxes, and fees. 32% increase over 2024; 42% increase over 2023.

This chart depicts a slightly higher spend in 2025 ($10,386.89) because I changed how I accounted for the spending on a reservation with segments in both 2025 and 2026 after the graph was made.

MORE ON MILES

I flew in every month, a feat last achieved in 2023.

Wide-body jet has an n of 1.

This is a new graph this year. The "Just for Fun" graph further down includes counts of upgrades cleared, but not all upgrades are created equal. An upgrade to First on an intra-California flight, for example, is much less meaningful than an upgrade to First on a transcontinental flight. As the later graph shows, I had the same number of First upgrades as Premium upgrades, but many of my First upgrades were on short-haul, intra-California flights. This graph lends some insight into that.

MORE ON MONEY

Due to the change in how I accounted for costs between 2025 and 2026 explained below the "Total Fares Paid" graph, my average leisure cost per mile flown is actually $0.112/mile. And that makes sense. Otherwise, I was counting cost paid in 2025 for miles not flown until 2026. Similarly, in 2026, I would have had a zero cost for miles flown.

The minimum business itinerary SFO-PHL, CLT-SFO is somewhat inaccurate. The original itinerary booked was SFO-PHL roundtrip. After booking, I decided to travel from Philadelphia to Buffalo (via Amtrak to New York, so my highest leisure cost JFK-BUF itinerary is also part of this trip). I canceled my return PHL-SFO leg and replaced it with BUF-CLT-SFO, classifying the BUF-CLT segment as leisure. So the ticket cost for SFO-PHL, PHL-SFO got assigned to SFO-PHL, CLT-SFO. The latter has fewer total miles, so the unit cost for the original itinerary would have been lower.

Such is the challenge with accounting mixed business/leisure travel itineraries.

"Lead time" is defined as how many days in advance of departure the ticket was purchased.

Curve-of-best-fit would be loosely convex.

MORE ON WHERE

No passport required. However, I did exit the country on foot when visiting the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

A "visit" is defined as a segment either originating or terminating at a given airport. Connections grant two visits to the connecting airport. The size of the font is directly proportional to the number of visits.

 

The airport names are loosely organized by geographical location, to the extent possible given the range of font sizes.

To the surprise of no one.

My lone "Connecting & Connecting" segment was part of my attempted mileage run, which was the PDX-PDX segment. More on that later.

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" may times covers cases where I am at a client site.

WHILE IN FLIGHT

This is a new graph this year. I added it because of the number of times I traveled to and from BUR, which has no jet bridges. Certainly I had experienced non-jet bridge aircraft access before (e.g., regional jets at PDX Concourse B), but I decided to chart it this year.

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.

Last year, I noted that anecdotally in 2024, it seemed like pushback pauses were getting longer. Now a quarter into 2026, I can absolutely show that this is the case. Stay tuned for next year's graphs!

I had to resize the fonts and row heights to make this fit in the standard window size I use for all my charts and graphs.

N175SY may not count because the two itineraries flown represent the original intended itinerary, SFO-SNA, which was temporarily diverted to LAX.

N636QX appeared to have been doing the SFO-BUR shuttle run all day on 2/25. I flew it down to BUR in the morning and back up to SFO in the afternoon.

My two flights on N706AL were part of the same itinerary. I deplaned and then reboarded the same aircraft from the same gate at SEA.

It was quite a coincidence flying N8694E twice four days apart. That is also the first non-Alaska airframe to make an appearance on this chart.

RECORDS

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

Both the two shortest segments, experienced this year, were the result of diversions. More on those later.

Due to the change in how I accounted for costs between 2025 and 2026 explained below the "Total Fares Paid" graph, the 2025 Alaska spend should be slightly lower. However, it would not be removed from the top slot. Next year's graphs will correct for this.

BUR and SNA functioned as competitor airports to ONT because I was able to fly Alaska to those airports.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2025

For years, I've wanted to experience a go-around. In 2025, I experienced my first and my second go-arounds. The first one was on 2/13/25. While descending on final approach to BUR, a coyote showed up on the runway, and we had to re-execute the approach. The second was on 12/14/25 during my first ever mileage run--more on that later. We attempted to land at MFR, but the cloud ceiling was too low for the runway's instrumentation, so we had to climb back up. The weather did not improve at MFR, so we returned to PDX.

For years, I've also wanted to experience a diversion. And in 2025, I experienced my first and second diversions, both in December. On 12/2/25, en route to SNA from SFO, the cloud ceiling was too low at SNA for the runway's instrumentation. After vectoring en-route and circling over Catalina Island, we diverted to LAX to await the cloud coverage to clear up. Several other aircraft attempting to land at SNA were diverted to LAX, clogging up the aprons and taxiways. After we made gate contact, I was intending to deplane and modify my rental car reservation to pick up from LAX instead of SNA. However, I was informed that SNA had begun clearing up and was accepting arrivals, so we could depart in a few minutes. I decided to stay to experience the LAX-SNA flight. After about an hour, we pushed back. Due to the airspace patterns in the area, the route was very indirect, taking almost 30 minutes. This diversion earned me my second-shortest segment ever, LAX-SNA, 36 miles. Rather fortuitously, Alaska credited me 500 premier-qualifying miles for SFO-LAX and LAX-SNA.

Holding pattern over Catalina Island.

Indirect route from LAX to SNA.

My second diversion was on 12/14/25 as part of my mileage run--more on that later. En route to MFR from PDX, the cloud ceiling was also too low for MFR's runway. We executed a go-around and circled in the airspace for a while before turning around and heading back to PDX to refuel. This diversion earned me my shortest segment ever, which I am recording as PDX-PDX, 0 miles.

Cloud cover in the vicinity of MFR.

2025 was the first year in which I concurrently held status with two airlines. In addition to my MVP status with Alaska, my work had a promotion with Southwest where if I flew four segments within a given timeframe, I would be given A-List Preferred status. I completed this challenge and started receiving two free drink coupons on every Southwest flight, which the flight attendants only scanned about half of the time. It did make flying Southwest a good alternative to flying Alaska, which is why I accrued 16 segments on Southwest in 2025.

2025 was also the year I achieved a status level higher than the lowest tier. I clenched Atmos Gold on Alaska...just in time for Alaska to stop serving SFO-EWR (which I fly at least twice per year), SFO-BOS (which I often fly at least once per year), SFO-BUR (which I flew five times in 2025), SFO-MCO, and SFO-AUS, in addition to the already discontinued SFO-ORD. It appears Alaska decided to dehub its inherited Virgin America hub at SFO and give up fighting United. So, unfortunately, this was to be the end of my loyalty to Alaska. Loyalty does no good if the airline doesn't fly anywhere I need to go. As soon as it was open in 2026, I applied for a status match with United.

And, finally, the mileage run story. In November, I anticipated that with all my planned travel, I would be within about 1,500 miles of Gold status, which was close enough to justify a mileage run. Alaska also started awarding premier-qualifying miles for award tickets. So, I could theoretically fly these remaining miles for free. I searched anywhere Alaska flew that I could complete in a day trip. Connections were great because they could get me the 500-mile minimum. The cheapest mileage itinerary I found was SFO-PDX-MFR, returning MFR-SEA-SFO.

On Sunday, December 14, I began with an 8:00am departure from SFO. I brought with me reading materials, chargers, and a homemade salad with oil and vinegar. Next, I boarded my PDX-MFR segment. As described above, the arrival at MFR was unsuccessful. That, of course, wrecked my entire plan, because the flight back out of MFR was supposed to depart after only about 90 minutes on the ground, which was essential for me to make my connection in SEA. From a ticketing standpoint, it appeared as though I was terminating at MFR, rather than connecting, so I could not be automatically rebooked.

In Concourse C at PDX, I called Alaska customer support and asked them to get me from PDX to anywhere to SFO--it didn't matter where--to ensure I got the minimum number of miles. All options considered either had no availability, tight connections that could not be overridden, or return times to SFO much later than I had originally anticipated. I tried to get on a PDX-SEA flight on standby to make my SEA connection by bypassing MFR altogether. That flight was already delayed, and many passengers had to make tight connections in SEA, so the flustered gate agent did not want to spend the time untangling my itinerary. I called Alaska again and explained my situation. This agent told me I could call the following day and get credit for the itinerary I attempted to take, and I could simply fly home from PDX. I did so, finally getting to eat my salad on that flight and arriving home two hours earlier than planned.

Bringing and eating a homemade salad was perhaps the most Portland thing I could possibly have done.

As they say, even the best-laid plans. But I did indeed get all the miles I would have flown.

Mileage runs are so incredibly financially and environmentally irresponsible.