The purpose of this paper is to compare air passenger transportation in North America with ground passenger transportation as it is today and as it will probably be in the next few years. A precise statistical comparison is practically impossible; air figures include both domestic and international travel, scheduled and non-scheduled; rail figures include inter-city traffic and commuting; bus and car figures are for inter-city traffic only. This choice was arbitrary and represents a trade-off between highlighting selected comparisons and strict consistency for its own sake.