Fly me to the moon
Look where I've gone at home...
(Credit: FlightMemory.com)If you're a serious airline geek like me, you've saved every airline boarding pass you've ever used. No, it doesn't make sense but you do it anyway. But until recently, my boarding passes sat in a box with really no practical use except for the occasional bookmark. That was until I learned about a Web site that lets you put your flight history to very good use.
FlightMemory.com is a fantastic and free Web site that allows you to log your commercial flights into a database that will then give you oodles of cool statistics. You can see how long you've spent in the air, how many miles/kilometers you've flown, your total number of flights, your shortest and longest flights, a map of all your routes, and your top airlines, airports, routes, and aircraft types. FlightMemory even will tell you how how many times you've circled the Earth, and how many times you've flown to the moon and the Sun. Logging in all those flights does take a lot of time, but the results are worth it once you add everything in. Though my boarding passes only dated back to 1996, I was able to recall most of my prior flights from memory (geek alert!). For many flights I couldn't recall whether I had a window, middle, or aisle seat, but the site will track that as well.
...and abroad
(Credit: FlightMemory.com)According to my profile, I've circumnavigated the Earth 16.47 times and I've flown to the moon 1.7 times. I've barely made it to the Sun but I doubt I'll fly 93 million miles in my lifetime. My total flying distance is 410,056 miles, which translates to 39.01 days in the air. Yet that's nothing when compared with my friend who is a flight attendant with United Airlines. He's flown 3.56 million miles (that's 14.92 trips to the moon) and has spent 10.93 months aloft. And he still has flights to record.
FlightMemory also lets you purchase a poster with a world map of all your routes. I want to make it to South America before buying mine, but I'm saving space on my wall now.
Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry. E-mail Kent. 
- by eglazier July 7, 2008 3:29 PM PDT
- the first comment was in the worst possible taste making multiple assumptions that may or may not be true--- or just raining on the parade. what a slug
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