Domestic Flights: Air Freight Revenue Ton-Miles

Revenue Ton-Miles (monthly data)

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Though still much smaller than air passenger transportation, air freight is an increasingly important revenue source for the air transportation industry. It includes both freight handled by dedicated air cargo handlers and air cargo shipped on combined passenger and air freight carriers (passenger luggage is not considered cargo for this purpose). A revenue ton-mile is equal to one ton carried one mile and measures utilization of air-freight services. The data include both transborder and foreign flights by large U.S. carriers, but not include any flights by foreign carriers.

NOTES: The current value is compared to the value from the same month in the previous year to account for seasonality.

The data have been adjusted to have a standard 30-day month by multiplying the data for each month by the ratio: 30/(actual days in month).

The dramatic changes in the September 2001 data reflect the impact of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 on aviation, including several days in which commercial air operations were suspended.

For comparability, the data reported here exclude small-certificated and commuter carriers that began reporting T100 data in 2002.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Air Carrier Traffic Statistics Monthly, October 2005.