Infographic: Is it safe to fly this holiday season?

The holiday season is often the time of year a lot of people take to the skies that are not frequent fliers. And if you combine this with the recent bad news about air safety, you can’t blame people for asking themselves: is it safe to fly this holiday season?

With news of exploding engines, bombs in printer cartridges and enhanced security at the airports, the media would make it seem like flying is more dangerous than ever.

So, the artists at The Friendly Planet Blog have collected some data, and turned it into a brilliant infographic. With numbers collected from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Air Transport Association, the infographic shows what most of us already know – air travel is safer than ever.

The numbers don’t lie – on over ten million flights in the U.S. last year, only 50 people died in a flight accident. You have a much greater chance of dying in the car on the way to the airport than you will when you are on board your flight.

In the coming weeks, we’ll have some great survival tips on how to get through the hectic holiday travel season, and after the jump you’ll find the full version of the graphic with lots more statistics to prove just how safe air travel is.

Click on the image for the full size version. Thanks to blog.friendlyplanet.com for providing the infographic!