These States Are Flyover States (According To The Data)

A look at flights over versus flights landing

Photo by Eduardo Velazco Guart on Unsplash

The term “flyover state” is bandied about quite frequently when discussing various places in the United States. The term is often pejorative and used to describe somewhere that no one actually wants to go. Flyover states are places not worth visiting, at least according to the lexicon. Many states have been branded so-called flyover states in colloquial speech, but what does the data say?

Researchers at ChampionTravel and World Population Review put together some data that analyzed the number of flights passing over a state versus flights actually going into a state. The results were very interesting.

Before we dive into the data, there are some caveats that must be mentioned. Some states had particularly high rates of flyover simply due to their geographic location. Virginia is a state that ranked very highly on the flyover list, but that is primarily because it sits between some of the United States’ busiest airports (Charlotte, Atlanta, NYC.) Another thing to point out is that the number of flights going into a state is also heavily affected by the state’s population. Small states like South Dakota and Rhode Island are going to have far fewer incoming flights than a more populous state such as New Jersey, even if most Rhode Island residents would say that their state is nicer than New Jersey.

Now, onto the data.

The States With The Most Flyovers (Top 10)

Photo by Sharosh Rajasekher on Unsplash

The data took a simple ratio of flight paths over a state versus flights with a final destination in the state. This is what the numbers bore out.

The score represents the flyover-to-destination ratio.

1. West Virginia (195)
2. Kansas (52)
3. Mississippi (42)
4. Iowa (39)
5. Kentucky (35)
6. Wyoming (30)
7. Virginia (28)
8. New Mexico (26)