Do you think you know everything there is to know about planes and flying? Read our 10 fascinating facts about flying and you might just discover something new!
Fact 1
The world’s safest airline is considered to be the Australian airline Qantas. They have never had a fatality on board any of their planes.
Fact 2
Ever find your airline food just tastes a bit strange? This is due to the fact that around a third of your taste buds simply stop working when you’re in the air. Airline food is developed specifically to counteract this. If you ate your in-flight meal on the ground, you’d be likely to find it far too seasoned.
Fact 3
The largest passenger airline in the world is Emirates. Emirates has 100 Airbus A380s, the largest fleet of A380s in the world.
Fact 4
Each day there are around 200,000 planes in the air. It’s a good job air traffic control know what they’re doing! It’s hard to imagine co-ordinating all those planes but they all manage to take off, get to their destination and land safely. When there is a plane crash, it makes major news because it is so rare. If you worry about flying, this statistic should help put your mind at rest. It really is safer to fly by plane than the car journey you took to the airport!
Fact 5
If a plane crashes, you’ve been very unlucky, and the chances of survival are not all that good no matter where you sit. However, it is thought that sitting in the tail of the aircraft gives you slightly better odds over any other seat in the plane. So if you’re a worrier, you might want to bear this in mind next time you’re choosing your seat!
Fact 6
Pilots are fed special meals during the flight, using ingredients least likely to make them sick. Often the pilot and the co-pilot are given different meals, so if there was a dodgy ingredient in there, they won’t both get ill!
Fact 7
The first ever commercial airline was DELAG, a German airline. The oldest airline in the world that is still in business is KLM.
Fact 8
The longest non-stop flight in the world is operated by Qatar Airways and covers a route of 14,500 kilometers between Doha and Auckland, New Zealand.
Fact 9
If your plane sets on fire, you’ve got about 90 seconds to get out alive. Anyone remaining in the plane for longer than two minutes is highly unlikely to survive. When you think about how long it can take people to disembark in normal circumstances, it’s hard to imagine every passenger getting out within 90 seconds in an emergency!
Fact 10
The fastest passenger plane ever was the British and French collaboration, Concorde. It flew at a top speed of 2,179km per hour. Sadly Concorde flew its last flight back in 2003.
Emily is an avid writer with a passion for the travel industry. She also loves learning and writing about nutrition and healthy living. Emily is based in the UK.
