Speed Comparison Chart

The Speed Comparison Chart, from the Guardian Digital Agency on Tumblr, compares the speeds of different vehicles, from cars to planes to spaceships.

Cool infographic design that tells one story really well.

Find the Best Airline Fees

Traveling is a pleasure that we don’t want to give up, but costs keep rising! Find the Best Airline For You infographic from Nerd Wallet lets you know which airline to travel on depending on your traveling habits to keep the costs down!

U.S. airlines continue to increase fees - more fees and higher fees.  However, there are no standards or regulations when it comes to airline fees so travelers don’t know what to expect.  Fee prices range widely by airline, and there is little transparency on the terms of each fee.  For example, some fees are charged based on how stops are made, while others are billed as flat fees.  Some fees have a base rate but increase from the time of booking to boarding the plane.  

As a result, cost comparison is extremely difficult, especially when travelers are evaluating multiple airlines.  To make matters worse, fees are not properly disclosed – they are hidden within multiple layers on airlines’ websites and shrouded by vague wording.  NerdWallet gathered the data and analyzed each fee across all major U.S. airlines.  To help travelers save money, we defined several traveler profiles and calculated fees on a comparable basis to determine which airline is best (and worst) for each type of traveler.

There are a handful of things I like about this one.  

• The main thing is that throughout all of the Lowest/Highest comparisons, the scale of the bar charts is kept consistent.  This allows the reader to easier understand how much money is related to each travel fee.
• The green-red (good-bad) color scheme is instantly understandable to the reader.
• The icons (all in blue) are easy to understand.  By keeping them all a consistent solid blue color, they are kept simple and don’t create a bunch of “visual noise” that would distract the reader.
• Sources are listed at the bottom
• The direct URL to the original infographic is included at the bottom so readers can find the high-resolution original no matter where they find it posted on the Internet.

I would suggest using the airline logos, even in a solid color, to make it easier for the readers to pick out the airlines they recognize.

Thanks to Annie for sending in the link!

Airlines: The Future of Loyalty is Social

SimpliFlying has done some great research on how frequent travelers use social media.  The Future of Loyalty is Social infographic summarizes some of the key findings from the research.

To dig deeper, we partnered with Cranfield University in the UK to conduct a study on how frequent travelers (who travel at least five times a year) use social media. And here are some highlights of what we found:

1. There are more airlines on Twitter than there are airlines with frequent flyer programs (191 vs 179)
2. Almost 90% of frequent flyers use Facebook regularly, and over 65% “Like” at least one airline on Facebook
3. To frequent fliers cheapest fare is the least significant loyalty factor among customer service, earning loyalty points and onboard experience
4. 72% of frequent fliers would join a social loyalty program
5. Over 65% of frequent fliers would like to earn social loyalty points via check-ins or by contributing ideas to an airline’s Facebook page.
6. Over 80% of frequent fliers would like to earn social loyalty points by recommending the airline to a friend or providing positive feedback.

In the infographic below, we have summarized the findings of the study, and will soon release a detailed presentation of these findings too. Special thanks to Gavin Tan and Prof. Keith Mason from Cranfield University for their tremendous help with this study.

The simple, isotype-style illustrations are immediately recognizable since they are so similar to the figures used in airports and airline signage.  I think the Frequent Flier Participation Ladder is some fantastic data, and should have been more prominent in the design.

A handful of things I would have changed about the design:

• The initial visualization of social sites should have been in descending order.  It’s almost there except for Twitter listed first.
• The Twitter factoid ‘Frequent fliers “following” their favorite airlines on Twitter are steadily increasing’ is not supported by the visual showing how many airlines are followed by frequent fliers.  The statement claims a change over time.
• The benefit percentages are shown on an odd shape of 10 squares.  Is that supposed to be an airline seat?  Hard for the reader to visually grasp the percentage since it isn’t a simple square shape.  A grid of 100 squares would have worked better.
• The doughnut percentages are sorted in descending order, so the colors are in a different order in each doughnut.  Very hard to interpret.  The orders should have stayed consistent from Very Strong to Not at all in each doughnut.  Doughnuts are also hard to compare with each other visually.

Some great research data, and an infographic was a great way to publicize it.  They were very thankful to the professors at Cranfield University for their help with the research, but I wish they had credited a designer.  Was this done by someone inside SimpliFlying?

Found on MediaBistro

The Genealogy of U.S. Airlines

A new infographic poster designed by Larry Gormley at HistoryShots.com!  The Genealogy of U.S. Airlines visualizes over 90 years or corporate history of airline mergers, acquisitions and closures.  Over 100 different airlines have consolidated down the seven shown still in existence today. 

The carriers are color coded and line widths represent market share for any particular year.

Over its short history, the US airline industry has experienced many dynamic phases of expansion and consolidation. From its origins in the 1920s, when air mail carriers started to transport passengers, to the creation (with the not so gentle prodding of the government) of the Big Four (American, United, TWA, and Eastern), from the rise of the local service carriers to deregulation and the most recent wave of mergers and acquisitions, the industry continues to fascinate both the casual traveler and the aviation buff.

The purpose of this graphic is to uncover and explain how the industry was created and how it arrived at its present form. At the core is a full genealogy of over 100 US airlines from the major airlines to the small local service carriers. Folded into the genealogy is the relative market share of passenger traffic for each airline. This allows the viewer to understand how the industry was controlled for many decades by the Big Four and how this dominance was quickly replaced by a number of other airlines.

You can buy a copy of the poster for $29.95 over at HistoryShots.com

Converging Flight Paths - Airline Merger Infographic

I really like this one from the NYTimes.com.  Converging Flight Paths visualizes the airline mergers over time from 1975 to today, but also shows the “Domestic share of total passengers flown each year.”

The deregulation of the airline industry in 1978 led to a wave of mergers that continues to this day. But even as the legacy carriers have been consolidating and growing, they have been losing market share to low-cost carriers. Two of them, SouthWest and AirTran, have just agreed to merge and carried the most domestic passengers in 2009 combined. But if international passengers were included, this ranking would be greatly rearranged.

By KARL RUSSELL/The New York Times.  Sources: American Transport Association (passenger data 1975-89); Bureau of Transportation Statistics (passenger data 1990-2009)

Link from Elliott Ng on Twitter.

Infographic Airplane! from Kulula Airlines

This is a great new infographic paint job on a Kulula Airlines (a South Africa airline) Boeing 737, informative and humorous.  With labels detailing many of the plane’s features, this looks like a a training plane.  See the high-res photos on Flickr.

“The Big Cheese” identifies the pilot seat, and Co-Captain is on the other side for the co-pilot.  “Jump Seat” is for “the wannabe pilots”.

Even the location of the Black Box is identified with the useful information “(which it’s actually orange).”  Who knew the loo was also the “mile-high club initiation chamber”?!?

From the Flightstory Aviation Blog: 

In addition, the following descriptions of plane parts can be found:

• galley (cuppa anyone?)
• avionics (fancy navigation stuff)
• windows (best view in the world)
• wing #1 and #2
• engine #1 and #2 (26 000 pounds of thrust)
• emergency exit = throne zone (more leg room baby!)
• seats (better than taxi seats)
• some windows = kulula fans (the coolest peeps in the world)
• black box (which is actually orange)
• landing gear (comes standard with supa-fly mags)
• back door (no bribery/corruption here)
• tail (featuring an awesome logo)
• loo (or mile-high club initiation chamber)
• rudder (the steering thingy)
• stabiliser (the other steering thingy)
• a.p.u. (extra power when you need it most)
• galley (food, food, food, food…)
• boot space
• ZS-ZWP (OK-PIK) = secret agent code (aka plane’s registration)
• overhead cabins (VIP seating for your hand luggage)
• fuel tanks (the go-go juice)
• cargo door
• aircon ducts (not that kulula needs it… they’re already cool)
• front door (our door is always open … unless we’re at 41 000 feet)
• cockpit window = sun roof
• nose cone (radar, antenna, and a really big dish inside)

Photos were posted on Flickr by member shanairpic.  I found them through Nathan’s post on FlowingData and thanks to Jesse for sending in a link.

Why are Cheap Airlines so cheap? (infographic)

From 5WGraphics.com, a good side-by-side infographic comparison of why the cheap airlines can actually operate with lower fares to passengers. The cost comparison is in Euros, but those of us in America should be able to figure it out.

Air Traffic Worldwide movie

Very similar to the Flight Patterns video I posted back in October 2007, this is a video showing all commercial flight in the world over a 24-hour period.  The previous video was only the U.S., but this one shows the entire world.  It also shows the day/night areas and you can see the increase in air traffic as dawn rises around the world.  Its from the Zhaw School of Engineering in Zurich.

Found via FlowingData.com

Fly Through Airport Security

"How to...Fly Through Airport Security" illustration by Jason Lee from Wired Magazine, March 2008 (16.03).

You might as well check your dignity curbside. Soon you'll be shoeless and flustered, spilling comics across the floor as you dig your MacBook from the depths of your duffel. But take a deep breath, frequent fliers: It is possible to pass security with your ego intact. Here's how.

Airport infographic video

Cool infographic video: airport by iain anderson (as shown in oz digital shorts in the sydney film festival 2005)

Found on funwithstuff.com