AIRCRAFT CAPACITY UTILIZATION - PASSENGERS AND FREIGHT
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.