I am not Al Gore's friend

15 January 2008. Inspired by lining out my dirty air.

Let's just start by saying that I don't feel good about this.


I did my annual calculation of flights taken the other day. Now I thought last year's total of 36 was pretty ridiculous. And it was. How about 2007?

62. (Actually, 62 and a half, if you count the parachute jump.)

I recounted, twice, blushing harder each time. It's a lot of time in the air, several days of my life in lines for security, and more over-priced food and copies of The Economist than any man has any right to suffer. Its also more than 90,000 miles of flying, which is something like 24 times around the circumference of the globe. If you listen carefully, you can hear my bodyclock spinning.

Here's a spiderweb of my 2007 European routes:

euroflying.gif


And here's a graph of my airport consumption (click for detail). The fattest bit, unsurprisingly, is Barcelona:

graph1.jpg


In some more numbers:

29 airports visited
13 countries visited, in four continents (transit obviously doesn't count, and I didn't make it across to Asia while in Istanbul)
1 Business Class upgrade
2 missed planes (one for lost passport, one for when the clocks went forward in March - yes, really)
2 flights booked that I chose not to take

And finally, the awards:

Best airport terminal: Zurich
Worst airport terminal: Yet again, Charles de Gaulle, though Miami ran it very close this year
Smallest airport terminal: Henri Coandă International
Best airline accessory: the KLM shop in Schipol, with an entire fake cabin to sit in
Strangest gadget: the airblowery thing that tests for gunpowder residue on furreners in the USA. Iris scanning looks fun, too
Strangest sight: 200 people dressed like nomads, waiting patiently in Ataturk Airport for their connection to Kyrgyzstan
Best movies: Virgin Atlantic
Best inflight mag: Ling. Obviously
Worst food: the lack of anything hot on a six-hour flight, due to the strike on Air France
Best customer service: Miami Airport, where the security guard offered me a swig of some confiscated whisky
Worst customer service: Everyone else in Miami Airport

I should also point out that I took a *lot* of trains and buses this year. But yes, I've been a bad carbon boy, and my flatmates no longer know who I am. This year didn't start well - a flight on 2nd Jan - but it will be a little better. Next year will be a LOT better. That, or I'll start giving the safety demonstrations myself.

(Image from The Great Circle Mapper, graph from Create a Graph and inspired by the latest, ever-wonderful, Feltron Report.)