The golden era of flying is now

3 days ago 3

Safer, cheaper, faster, further-reaching, more comfortable, and more equitable — there's never been a better time to fly across the country, or between continents.

Tony Morley, June 5th, 2025

“The average person would need to take a flight every day for 25,214 years to experience a fatal accident”

If you had to choose a moment in history to take a commercial flight between any two major cities on earth, and you didn’t know in advance which flight, which airline, or which budget or class you’d be flying — to paraphrase Barack Obama in a 2016 address, “You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now.”

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The headlines

The headlines would have you believe that commercial air travel has never been more dangerous, delays have never been longer, prices have never been higher, or the whole process has never been more insufferable. But here’s the thing: the exact opposite is true. It turns out modern commercial air travel is safer, cheaper, faster, further-reaching, more comfortable, and more equitable — there's never been a better time to fly across the country, or between continents.

Safer, in fact, much safer by every metric

With a string of recent high-profile commercial aircraft incidents in the headlines in 2025, you’d be forgiven for believing the absolute number of incidents and the likelihood of being involved in an aircraft-related incident have gone up in recent years, but in fact, commercial flight has been getting safer decade after decade, and it remains arguably the safest way to travel any meaningful distance.

Globally, between 1970 and 2021, the number of fatal airliner accidents per million commercial flights fell from 6.4 fatalities per million flights to just 0.46. Put another way, the global airline industry flew nearly 210,000 passengers safely, for every tragic life lost flying in 1970. However, by 2021, that figure had climbed to 18.5 million passengers flown safely for each life lost; an increase in the number of people flown safely per life loss of 8,700%. Other safety risks, such as hijackings, have declined dramatically, in both the number of total incidents and the number of resulting deaths, especially so when discounting the tragedy of 9/11 as a statistical outlier.

US airlines have flown 13.3 trillion passenger miles (21.4 trillion passenger kilometres) since the last major crash in 2009. As Our World In Data puts it, "It’s equivalent to 535 million trips around the Earth or 28 million visits to the moon and back."

A 2022 report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) concluded that the average person would need to take a flight every day for 25,214 years to experience a fatal accident, up from the previous five-year average of 22,116 years. The dramatic drivers of, and results from, such incredable progress in airline safety justifies a dedicated op-ed, and while it's natural to ask “Are planes crashing more often?”, no matter how you slice it, across nearly every metric, an even in light of recent airline accidents — there's never been a safer time to fly than today.

Cheaper

Innovation and competition over the last century have driven a consistent decline in the real cost of air travel, especially true, post deregulation of the American airline industry. The real cost of flying has decreased in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, time-price, and in what you get in return for your dollars paid. In 1947, you could make the journey from Sydney to London in a converted World War II bomber in roughly 55 hours; stopping to refuel and resupply in Darwin, Singapore, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Karachi, Cairo, Castel Benito in Tripoli, and Rome, for roughly £525, roughly $22,600 USD, adjusted for inflation, one-way. Today, you can book a Sydney to London flight, with just one connection in Perth, for just $1,100 USD.

Moreover, as Gale L. Pooley highlights in his assessment of the abundance of flight, “Comparing flight prices from 1970 to today reveals a staggering 90.8 percent decrease in the time price of flying, with transcontinental flights now affordable for the average person.”

“For example, in 1970 the price for a roundtrip ticket from New York to London was $550. Blue-collar workers at the time were earning around $3.93 an hour in compensation (wages and benefits). This suggests a time price of around 140 hours.

Today, the ticket price has dropped to around $467. Blue-collar workers are now earning closer to $36.15 an hour, putting the time price at 12.9 hours. The time price has fallen by 90.8 percent: for the time required to earn the money to buy one flight in 1970, you can get 10.8 flights today. Flying abundance has increased by 980 percent, compounding at an annual rate of 4.5 percent over the last 54 years.”

Faster

It’s hard to be optimistic about the improved speed of air travel when standing at your gate and reading a delay notice on the overhead board, but pan out, and the story of point-to-point air travel has become much faster, whether you’re flying economy or business class. What is perhaps most interesting is that almost none of the most recent improvements in flight times have come from the aircraft flying faster; we’ve actually gone somewhat backward in terms of the top speed for average commercial passenger aircraft. Between the 1950s and 1980s, the speed at which average aircraft travelled increased substantially, as long-duration prop-driven flight gave way to jet engines, culminating with, if you discount the Concorde, the Boeing 747-400, with a maximum operating speed of Mach 0.92, that is 92% of the speed of sound at high altitudes. Faster aircraft brought huge improvements to travel times through the 1950s to the end of the 1980s, but from there, faster travel really came from improved logistics.

“Faster aircraft brought huge improvements to travel times through the 1950s to the end of the 1980s, but from there, faster travel really came from improved logistics.”

While time in the air, that is, flight time, is the metric frequently thought of, it’s not where the majority of time saving has come from in recent decades. The vast majority of time saving has come on the back end, in the little seen aspects of flight logistics, reducing or eliminating connections through direct and longer-haul flights, improved refuelling, resupplying and turnaround processes for aircraft at airports, and highly automated scheduling systems that smooth inevitable staffing perturbations and logistical issues, from sick pilots and aircraft faults to inclement weather delays.

One of the most publicised case studies for decreasing flight times between destinations has been Australia and London, with flights in the 1950s and 1960s lasting a gruelling 5o to 60 hours, with the fastest sprint journey made in April 0f 1960 in just 34 hours and 30 minutes. Today, Qantas can shave more than 10 hours off that flight time at 23 hours 15 minutes, flying in the Airbus A380-800 QF8145. By 2027, Qantas plans to operate “Project Sunrise”, the world's longest direct flight, from Sydney to London, covering 17,015 kilometers in approximately 20 hours non-stop, with high-speed wifi, and a fleet of amenities our flying ancestors of 1980 could scarcely imagine — all within the budget of normal people flying economy.

It’s a similar story for nearly all previously far-flung intercontinental destinations. It’s been a story of demand, innovation, technological progress and competition, driving aircraft with improved fuel economy, progressively improving range, and the ability to make fewer, and then ultimately no stops for refuelling, restocking provisions or flight-to-flight maintenance.

Further

There’s no denying that the world of today is more interconnected than at any point in human history. It’s never been more possible, easier or less expensive to travel between any two points on earth via any means of transportation, but this is substantially truer for air travel. Over the past four decades, falling real prices and increasing demand have allowed providers to increase the service delivery of airlines. Collectively, civilisation now operates more destination airports and airfields, more airlines, more connections and more flights than ever before, with the result being a significantly improved range of travel for average customers.

Collectively, some 738 commercial airlines serve 3,938 commercial airports globally, with United Airlines serving 373 destinations alone, and Turkish Airlines delivering service to 123 countries. Aside from operating a larger network of airports, long-haul and ultra-long-haul flights, that is flights extending 7-12 hours and 16-20+ hours, have, despite their seemingly torturous intent, contributed to shrinking the globe in a positive way, bringing people, business, ideas and cultures together. The significantly improved fuel efficiency of the latest generation of aircraft, such as the Airbus A350-900 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, have helped eliminate the need for many connections, reducing overall point-to-point travel time for the passengers, when factoring in boarding, deboarding, and all the associated time costs, while reducing operating costs for airlines and subsequently the fares charged to travellers.

While much of the globe has been within the travel reach of governments, royalty and the wealthiest businesses and individuals; domestic and international destinations have never been more economically or logistically accessible to the average global citizen, whether it’s New York to Navada, or Tokyo to Tangier.

More comfortable

“Airline glamour never promised anything as mundane as elbow room, much less a flat bed, a massage, or an arugula salad. It promised a better world. Service and dress reflected the more formal era, but no one expected air travel to be comfortable. It was amazing just to have hot food above the clouds.” — Virginia Postrel, Up, Up, and Away

Everything about the modern flying experience is more comfortable than that of the 1950s, 1970s or 1980s equivalent, at every fare price point, no exceptions. For starters, there were the aircraft themselves. Flying through much of the 20th century, presuming you could afford the privilege, was a loud, turbulent, rattling, poorly pressurised, smoke-filled, boring saga with only a magazine or book for entertainment. Many of the innovations we take for granted flying today were hard-won technological breakthroughs, regulations and standards improvements that took decades to become widely available.

“I’d argue that I’d rather fly a 20-hour Sydney to London route today than any 15-hour flight between any two locations circa 1980, and I’d bet you would too.”

When it comes to the comforts of flying, our own hedonic treadmill has helped us forget just how much more comfortable the entire experience of flying today is compared with the recent past. Enter a large modern international airport today, and you’re entering an entertainment park filled with shops, restaurants, bars, convenience stores, and lounges. These modern airports bear, with a few exceptions, little resemblance to the airports of a decade past. Modern climate control, high-speed internet access, significantly improved entertainment, shopping, gate departure displays, food options, and artwork make for a much more enjoyable wait, when compared to the past.

For all the bad press today’s aircraft get for being cramped and uncomfortable, with airlines supposedly squeezing out every dollar from passengers by shrinking amenities and space, the aircraft themselves are so much better, it’s simply astonishing. Modern aircraft fly higher, smoother, and have improved cabin pressure, air conditioning and noise insulation, dramatically reducing fatigue and pressure-related discomfort, have improved radar and navigation systems to better avoid turbulence, and are frequently equipped with entertainment systems, high-speed satellite Wi-Fi and flight tracking, unimaginable to those flying in the primitive days of the eighties, nineties and early 2000s. And all of that is to say nothing of the improved food, drink, toilets, amenities, ambient lighting, and the ability to head to the back of the plane and stretch, in a spacious common area. And all the aforementioned is available in economy; it's obviously much better in business or first class, assuming you can and are willing to pay significantly more. With all that being said, I’d argue that I’d rather fly a 20-hour Sydney to London route today than any 15-hour flight between any two locations circa 1980, and I’d bet you would too.

More equitable

The greatest equality divide for air travel has always been cost, an enormous economic span between those who could afford to fly, and the substantially larger group of those who were confined to land and sea for long-distance travel. The last quarter century of falling air travel costs has done more to make air travel accessible than any other contributing factor to improving air travel equality, but certainly isn’t the complete story. Globalization and geopolitical interconnectedness, which have improved since the 1980s, have loosened red tape and visa restrictions, allowing more people to go more places, most appreciably the travel opportunities for people in low and middle-income countries to travel to high-income countries. This loosening of red tape and restrictions on travel globally is part of a larger story of falling barriers to travel, discriminatory practices and cultural impediments. Ultimately, the forces of capitalism have worked to drive equality in air travel, as what the shareholders of Delta or Ryanair care about most is moving people safely for a profit, irrespective of who they are, where they’re from, or their socio-economic status.

"Ultimately, the forces of capitalism have worked to drive equality in air travel, as what the shareholders of Delta or Ryanair care about most is moving people safely for a profit, irrespective of who they are, where they’re from, or their socio-economic status."

While a New York to London flight in the 1960s was likely to be disproportionately filled with wealthy, white, middle-aged men, the same flight today is significantly more likely to be a melting pot of people from varied ages, sexes, ethnic, religious, social and economic backgrounds, a testimony to falling equality barriers in air travel, and improved accessibility.

In the early days of commercial airline travel, the “People who flew, especially internationally, seemed like a special circle: the best and the brightest.” Today, it's everyday people like you and me.

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