It's often easy to forget how important air travel is to regions like western Alaska. It transports people, food, medical supplies and more to far-flung villages hundreds of miles from one another.
On a recent trip, this thought popped into our minds. And like the nerds we are, we dove into the data to try and illustrate just how critical this resource — lifeline — is.
Here's 10 interesting facts and figures we uncovered using a T-100D report from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Some graphs are interactive, click or tap to reveal more information.
1. Kotzebue was Nome's most popular destination, after Anchorage
2. The longest flight from Nome was 1,987 miles to Seattle. The shortest was just 57 miles to Teller
3. Nome imported nearly three times more air freight than it exported
4. Passenger King: Bering Air's Cessna 208B Grand Caravan led the carrier's fleet in passengers flown
5. January is Nome Airport's slowest month, August is the busiest
6. Slightly more people flew to Nome than left
7. The sky was full of Caravans, with the most number of departures performed by any airline
Bering Air's fleet of Cessna 208B Grand Caravans flew a whopping 33,480 segments across the state in 2024, averaging just over 91 per day. Bering Air's much smaller fleet of Beech 1900D's flew an average of eight segments per day.
8. The Navigator Airstrip received the most freight of any destination besides Anchorage
The remote airstrip in the center of the Seward Peninsula is near a sprawling mining claim owned by Lost River Mining, LLC. The site was dormant for nearly half a century and is currently being explored for tin and other minerals.
