For my first post of 2020 I thought I’d take a final look back at 2019. A few years ago I did a year-end summary post (2017 in way more than 17 photos) which I enjoyed writing, but the whole thing felt a bit empty. Looking back at that post and I realize it was basically just a way to try to get clicks back to my site. Yes, I was shameless back then…
Since then I’ve decided to skip year-end summary posts for the most part. I figure, if you really care about the flights I’ve taken or the posts I’ve written you can go back and find the posts that you want to read. So, instead of doing a long, photo rich, year-end summary post, I’ll instead just post some data about my year of travel.
Most of this information was covered in my American Airlines 2019 Year in Review post. However, 2019 was unique because I actually spent quite a bit of time flying on airlines other than American Airlines. For 2019 I actually spent quite a bit of time flying United, Delta, Jet Blue, and even Southwest. The reason for this was simple. I ended up flying enough to hit AAdvantage Executive Platinum early in the year. This meant I could fly whatever airline was cheapest or offered the best times, rather than being stuck with American. Trying out other airlines was a lot of fun, but mostly reminded me why I chose American in the first place. Anyway, all of that will be discussed in another post, for now, let’s look at 2019 by the numbers.
My Update 2019 FlightMemory
Until recently, I haven’t updated my FlightMemory account since July 2019. That was right after my final major trip of the year to Tokyo which secured my Executive Platinum elite status for 2020. Since then the only flying I’ve done was domestically so my miles flown did not increase significantly.
To round out 2019 I ended up flying just under 130,000 miles. That’s about 5.16x around the Earth! To cover that distance I sat on planes for at least 262 hours, or about 11 days! In total I took 66 flights of which 45 were domestic.
When I looked at the domestic flight map it became clear that I live in the New York City area. Actually, to end 2019 I relocated back to Chicago, so I expect the above map to look very different in 2020.
The world map remained unchanged since I last updated my FlightMemory as I did not take any international trips in the second half of the year. I was hoping to take a trip to Europe or the Middle East this year, but it simply did not work out as planned.
My Top-10s were fairly interesting this year as I ended up spending a lot of time in Hong Kong and on airlines other than American. I can’t believe I took 13 flight with United this year!
As I’ve mentioned in my American Airlines Year In Review post, 2019 was overall a bit of a boring travel year. Yes I went to some interesting destinations, but there wasn’t all that much variety as there was in 2018 or 2017. This is especially evident when you take a look at my cumulative FlightMemory data.
My Complete FlightMemory – January 2020
I only started recording my flight activity (saving boarding passes) since late 2015. Since then, I’ve flown over 460,000 miles and have nearly traveled to the moon twice.
While those numbers make it seem like I’ve been all over the world (literally), looking at the FlightMemory cumulative maps tells a different story. When looking at the domestic map it’s quickly obvious that there are vast areas of the US I’ve not yet visited. Notably, I’ve never been to Utah, New Mexico, or Idaho, among others.
The World Map makes it seem like I’ve covered a large portion of the world, but that’s only because of scale. There is still so much of the world that I am yet to see.
Finally, looking at my cumulative Top-10s paints exactly the picture you’d expect to see. I fly mostly with American Airlines and I fly to Chicago or my home in St. Louis. That being said, it’s also clear that I’ve spent way too much time in the DFW airport!
When looking at the Top-10 lists I’m reminded by just how many airlines there are that I’ve never flown. I’m not just talking about small obscure airlines either. I’m talking about airlines like Etihad, Iberia, EVA, Austrian, or Swiss. Sometimes it feels as though I’ve flown most of the airlines in the world when in fact, I’ve only just scratched the surface.
Final Thoughts
And just like that, 2019 has officially come to a close. I’ve entered the last of my flights into FlightMemory and can now focus on 2020. I’m still not 100% sure what 2020 has to bring. This time last year I had 90% of my travels to earn elite status booked. Today, I only have one trip planned which will only get me about 30% of the way. The remaining 70% is still for me to figure out. Personally, I like this scenario better as it allows me to be a bit more spontaneous throughout the year.
Additionally, I still have so much more to write about from 2019. I’m sitting on a massive backlog of flight and lounge reviews that I just can’t seem to bring myself to write. I’m not sure why I’ve struggled so much to write these reviews, but for some reason I just never get around to them. Every time I think I’m going to start my Cathay First Class reviews I end up finding something else to write about. So, my goal for the next few months is to finally wrap up all of my trip reports from 2019 so that I can focus on 2020. As always I want to write these reviews as quickly as possible so the experience is fresh in my mind. Needless to say, my trips from the first-half of 2019 are a bit stale by now.
