Blue Sky Thinking.

I arrived a bit early to collect the children from school. Had a wander round , nothing much of interest on the ground, then looked up to see the 0234 flying to New York from Gatwick. Must have been at least 200 people in the plane. Got me thinking. At any one time over a 24 hour period, how many people in the world are up in the air ? Found an old envelope and had a go at working it out.
Came up with the figure of around  800,000. Is it better for the planet that there are always this amount of people in the air, sealed up in the flying containers, or would it be better if they were all on the ground. Whatever the answer is, I think we should be told.