Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Is regional air travel ready for liftoff?
Aerospace | Mobility
July 6, 2023 – Regional air travel could soon take off, according to partners Axel Esqué and Robin Riedel and coauthors, thanks to technology advances (battery-electric, hybrid, and hydrogen aircraft), a greater focus on sustainability, growing frustration with road and airport congestion, and the emergence of mobility-as-a-service. However, the aerospace industry will need to overcome a recent decline in the category: in 2019, for example, air travel accounted for just 4 percent of all journeys between 150 and 800 kilometers in the European Union and approximately 8 percent in the United States.
To read the article, see “Short-haul flying redefined: The promise of regional air mobility,” May 31, 2023.
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Visual form
Two-panel horizontal bar chart.
Layout / body structure
The United States appears in the left panel and the European Union in the right panel, with the same transportation-mode list repeated vertically so the rows can be read across both regions.
What is being compared
It compares the share of trips between 150 and 800 kilometers by transportation mode, including commercial air, business air, other air, train, bus, ferry, chauffeured car, and private car, in the United States and the European Union.
Measurement system
The measure is percentage share of trips, and the legend distinguishes air travel from the other transportation modes so the small aviation slice can be read against the larger ground-transport base.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each panel uses the same mode ordering, the mode labels are aligned down the left edge, and the side-by-side regional layout makes it easy to compare how small the air rows are relative to the ground-travel rows.
Main takeaway from the visual
The chart shows that regional air travel is a minor share of medium-distance trips in both markets, with the comparison dominated by nonair modes rather than by aviation.
Key standout values or extremes
The source text anchors the chart with about 8 percent air-share in the United States and about 4 percent in the European Union, while private-car and other ground-transport rows visually outweigh the air rows in both panels.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.