quote [ This globe displays one year of global air passenger traffic. The data comes from modeled estimates compiled for the Vector-borne Disease Airport Importation Risk project. In 2010, the year for which the data was modeled, there were roughly 30 million commercial flights around the world carrying about 2.8 billion passengers.

In the graphic, the air passenger flows are visualized as 1.4 million particles — each one representing 2,000 passengers. Airports are shown as purple spheres, with their size denoting total passenger traffic over the year. ]