Flyover States: Flight Data Shows Which States Americans Think Are Boring

“Flyover states” is an often-pejorative term for states that are perceived as boring. These are states that are passed over rather than visited. Our new analysis shows that West Virginia is the ultimate flyover state with almost 200 times more flights going overhead than flying to the state. Poor West Virginia — always flown over, never a destination. While Randall Monroe of XKCD is correct that Virginia is actually the most flown-over state (source), it’s also fairly popular as a destination. In our analysis of all 5.6 million domestic flights in the last 12 months we ran analysis on flight path for every flight and mapped which states each flight passes over. We then looked not only at the raw number of flyovers, but also at the ratio between destination flights and flyovers.

Ratio of flyover flights to destination flights (12 months):

Total flyover flights:

Total destination flights:

Table of 12 months’ flight data, ordered by flights over divided by flight to the state

State Flights to Flights over Flyover vs. Destination 1. West Virginia 2,387 466,364 195.4 2. Kansas 9,703 507,638 52.3 3. Mississippi 10,068 423,605 42.1 4. Iowa 12,817 499,965 39.0 5. Kentucky 16,178 576,293 35.6 6. Wyoming 7,917 244,716 30.9 7. Virginia 32,205 921,977 28.6 8. New Mexico 21,399 575,862 26.9 9. Arkansas 14,974 394,876 26.4 10. Alabama 23,843 447,931 18.8 11. South Dakota 8,052 151,268 18.8 12. Nebraska 22,970 414,412 18.0 13. Indiana 39,282 661,138 16.8 14. Oklahoma 30,020 433,732 14.4 15. South Carolina 30,263 435,378 14.4 16. Rhode Island 13,151 139,544 10.6 17. Connecticut 21,501 194,478 9.0 18. Idaho 21,500 193,891 9.0 19. Ohio 85,730 611,896 7.1 20. Tennessee 81,729 564,572 6.9 21. Pennsylvania 110,556 658,666 6.0 22. Maryland 99,031 581,602 5.9 23. North Dakota 10,726 61,088 5.7 24. Montana 17,004 91,710 5.4 25. New Jersey 122,974 587,842 4.8 26. Missouri 104,404 487,271 4.7 27. Louisiana 67,165 284,215 4.2 28. Vermont 3,708 15,681 4.2 29. North Carolina 162,329 676,605 4.2 30. Utah 114,239 418,604 3.7 31. Nevada 167,198 546,578 3.3 32. Arizona 176,531 567,688 3.2 33. Wisconsin 51,257 158,719 3.1 34. New Hampshire 6,364 19,672 3.1 35. Oregon 71,099 174,412 2.5 36. Colorado 245,548 461,304 1.9 37. Michigan 155,896 241,652 1.6 38. Illinois 352,071 537,712 1.5 39. New York 246,409 327,887 1.3 40. District of Columbia 111,168 84,969 0.8 41. Georgia 391,889 254,667 0.6 42. Minnesota 138,461 60,761 0.4 43. Texas 565,292 175,684 0.3 44. Washington 148,410 26,831 0.2 45. Massachusetts 125,110 20,946 0.2 46. California 740,782 14,562 0.0 47. Florida 452,180 3,177 0.0 48. Alaska 35,897 – – 48. Hawaii 102,602 – – 48. Maine 7,299 – – 48. Puerto Rico 29,152 – – 48. Virgin Islands 6,092 – – 48. Guam 485 – – N/A. Delaware – 383,906 N/A

West Virginia blows every state out of the water in its flyover ratio. There are two factors here: unavoidable geography and popularity. West Virginia’s unavoidable geography between major hub cities means it will be flown over more, whereas a state like Alaska is never flown over by domestic travelers. However, in raw terms, 16 other states are flown over more often than West Virginia, but each one of them has a lower flyover ratio than West Virginia due to the number of destination flights. There’s just not much to do in and around West Virginia’s airports. Aside from Delaware (the only state with no airport) and Guam (which is tiny), West Virginia is the least-popular destination.

Kansas, Iowa, and Kentucky all land in the top 5, which is the least-surprising result of this analysis given that “flyover country” generally refers to the Midwest. Surprisingly, Missouri bucks this trend at the middle of the list despite being beneath some major cross-continental air traffic.

Mississippi stands out as the southern state that gets flown over but is rarely a destination. There’s a saying for that in the South: thank God for Mississippi. (Because Mississippi occupies the bottom of many lists, saving other states from the shame of being ranked last.)

Data Sources:

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