Jet Lag: 12 takeaways in analyzing NFL team travel schedules this season
International expansion fuels NFL teams' ever growing flight itineraries
Now that the NFL playoffs are underway it means we have a regular season’s worth of data on each team’s travel patterns throughout the year.
Doug Kroll at JetTip writes a weekly blog that tracks every NFL teams’ charter flights for geeks like me that are interested in the cross section of sports and aviation. As I did in a blog post last year, I used this fantastic resource again to examine how far each team traveled this season, and the types of airplanes and airlines they utilized to get to their games.
So here are 12 main takeaways when diving into teams’ travel data this year:
Takeoff Takeaways
Teams from the coasts log the most travel miles, especially those from the west coast. Teams from the western United States are less concentrated than those in the Midwest and on the East Coast, which naturally leads to longer travel distances for them.
Seven international games were played this year, six in Europe and one in São Paulo, Brazil (a Week 1 clash between the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers) which set the record for most amount of international contests in an NFL season. The games were played across five countries — the UK, Germany, Spain, Ireland and Brazil. Predictably, teams involved in those games flew more than teams that didn’t play outside the U.S.
The Chargers flew the most this season thanks to that Week 1 game where they logged 12,000 miles roundtrip. For comparison, five teams (the Cincinnati Bengals, Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions, Baltimore Ravens and Green Bay Packers) traveled fewer miles through all 17 regular season games than LA did for that one matchup in Brazil.
Instead of going back home to LA, the Los Angeles Rams stayed in Baltimore following their Week 6 game against the Baltimore Ravens before traveling to London for an international game the following weekend against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Midwest teams travel the least of any region, which makes sense given they are in the middle of the country. The Cincinnati Bengals logged just over 8,000 miles during the 2025 regular season.
Interestingly, the top five teams in most miles traveled in the regular season all made the playoffs this year1.
The NFC traveled slightly more than the AFC: 308,000 vs 300,000 miles.
The Pittsburgh Steelers flew the 23rd most amount of miles despite playing a game in Dublin, Ireland in Week 4. They also became the only NFL team to fly Aer Lingus, the national Irish airline. A Week 10 game against the Chargers in LA was the only other instance in which they had to travel more than one time zone away.
The Seahawks ranked second this year in miles traveled, after finishing last season in the top spot despite not having any international games on the calendar. However, they were rewarded with home field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs thanks to earning the No. 1 seed in the NFC this season. That earned them a first round bye and they will now face their NFC West rivals the San Francisco 49ers this Saturday in Seattle. The Niners for their part are coming off a Wild Card win against the Philadelphia Eagles on the other side the country, and will now have to play on short rest. The team got back to San Francisco at around 1am Monday morning.
United Airlines was the most popular carrier for NFL teams, followed by Delta Airlines — last year Delta held the top spot. Atlas Air, a large cargo and charter airline, is another major company several NFL teams use. For example, the Miami Dolphins have exclusively used an Atlas Air Boeing 747-400 for their team travel; the airline uses a VIP configured 747, featuring just 189 seats.
The Chargers, Colts, Falcons and Commanders had the largest increases in nominal miles traveled vs last year, as they all played international games. The Colts had the largest Y/Y percentage increase at +113% vs 2024 followed by the Commanders. Washington played its Week 11 game against the Dolphins at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain. The Packers meanwhile had the largest decrease in the league in both miles traveled and percentage of their 2024 total distance after playing in Brazil last season. Overall, NFL teams flew more than 600,000 miles this regular season compared to about 590,000 miles last year (a 4% increase).
While completely coincidental, the ranking of NFC West teams in total miles traveled is identical to how they finished in the division standings this season.
If you want to look at the raw data yourself here’s an excel file containing 2025 regular season flight info for all 32 NFL teams2:
You’d be wise to remember that correlation does not imply causation.