AIRCRAFT CAPACITY UTILIZATION – PASSENGERS AND FREIGHT
Domestic Aircraft Revenue Load Factors (monthly data, not seasonally adjusted)
Aircraft load factors are used to measure aircraft in-flight capacity utilization.
Revenue Load Factors (percent)
May-00
May-01
Passenger revenue load factor
73.01
69.71
Passenger revenue load factor change from same month previous year
3.58
-3.30
Overall aircraft revenue load factor
59.05
55.19
Overall aircraft revenue change from same month previous year
2.41
-3.87
Freight revenue load factor
34.88
30.29
Freight revenue load factor change from same month previous year
0.93
-4.59
NOTES: The current value is compared to the value from the same period in the previous year to account for seasonality.
Load factor relates to the potential capacity of a system relative to its actual performance. In order to combine passenger and freight to calculate overall aircraft load factors, a common metric is needed: ton-miles. Thus, it is assumed that a passenger plus baggage weighs 200 pounds. The data do not include international flights by U.S. domestic carriers or domestic flights by foreign carriers.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Air Carrier Traffic Statistics Monthly, May 2001.
