DOT releases October traffic stats
Airline traffic for scheduled domestic and international passengers decline 1.4% in Oct-2009 compared to Oct-2008, according to the US Department of Transportation, which added the decline amounted to 0.9 million passengers to 58.8 million and marking the 18th month of decline out of the last 19 months.
The DoT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, reported that U.S. airlines carried 1.3% fewer domestic passengers than in October 2008. International passengers on US carriers decreased 2.8%.
For the first 10 months of 2009, the number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on US airlines declined by 6.3% from the same period in 2008, dropping to 592.1 million, 39.8 billion fewer than a year earlier, and the lowest January-to-October total since 2004. US airlines carried 6.2 percent fewer domestic passengers and 7.2 percent fewer international passengers in the first 10 months of 2009 than during the same period in 2008.
Scheduled System (Domestic and International) Airline Travel on U.S. Airlines
| Monthly | Year-to-Date | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct-2008 | Oct-2009 | Change % | Oct-2008 | Oct-2009 | Change % | |
| Passengers (in millions) | 59.7 | 58.8 | -1.4 | 631.9 | 592.1 | -6.3 |
| Flights (in thousands) | 821.4 | 784.2 | -4.5 | 8,669.0 | 8,026.7 | -7.4 |
| Revenue Passenger Miles (in billions) | 64.0 | 63.3 | -1.1 | 692.0 | 648.9 | -6.2 |
| Available Seat-Miles (in billions) | 80.9 | 77.1 | -4.6 | 865.0 | 805.7 | -6.9 |
| Load Factor* | 79.1 | 82.1 | 3.0 | 80.0 | 80.5 | 0.5 |
| Flight Stage Length** | 702.4 | 707.2 | 0.7 | 719.3 | 717.8 | -0.2 |
| Passenger Trip Length*** | 1,072.7 | 1,076.8 | 0.4 | 1,095.1 | 1,095.9 | 0.1 |
Southwest ranked number one carrying more total system and more domestic passengers than any other US carrier while American ranked number one for international passengers. The two also retained their rankings for the first 10 months of 2009
Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson retained its number one position while Miami clocked in as number one for international passengers, the same rankings they held for the first 10 months.
For the month, US carrier flights dropped 4.5% to 784,200 scheduled domestic and international flights compared to the year-ago period. Similarly, domestic flights also dropped 4.5% while international flights declined by 4.4%
The declines were greater for the first 10 months, with a 7.4% drop in domestic and international flights to 8.0 million. Domestic flights declined 7.5% and international flights were down 6.7%.