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)
Dec-99
Dec-00
Passenger revenue load factor
65.47
68.27
Passenger revenue load factor change from same month previous year
-1.80
2.80
Overall aircraft revenue load factor
53.98
55.50
Overall aircraft revenue change from same month previous year
-1.21
1.52
Freight revenue load factor
36.22
34.82
Freight revenue load factor change from same month previous year
0.29
-1.40
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, December 2000.
