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

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

Total flyover flights:

Total destination flights:

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