19–8.3 Applicability.
(a) All U.S. certificated (Part 241) and commuter (Part 298) air carriers conducting scheduled passenger services (except helicopter carriers) shall participate in a Passenger Origin-Destination (O&D) Survey covering domestic and international air carrier operations, as prescribed by the Department of Transportation’s Office of Airline Information (OAI) in the instructions manual, Instructions to Air Carriers for Collecting and Reporting Passenger Origin-Destination Survey Statistics, and in Passenger Origin-Destination Directives issued by OAI.

A sample data file is available for download at https://esubmit.rita.dot.gov/OD-US-40.aspx. Please refer to the ‘Index’ tab for examples on reporting. If your carrier has itinerary situations not covered in the file, please email OAI.OD40.Support@dot.gov with an example so it can be added. BTS has included as many examples as possible to assist with reporting.
 

Yes, carriers are encouraged to submit a sample of data before the official data submission begins. Please submit up to 1,000 rows of data in Excel format as an attachment to OAI.OD40.Support@dot.gov. BTS will review the file and provide feedback to ensure your carrier is on the right track.
 

Please email OAI.OD40.Support@dot.gov to be added to the OD40 distribution list.
 

The Instructions to Air Carriers for Collecting and Reporting Passenger Origin-Destination Survey Data (Domestic Carriers and Immunized Foreign Carriers) document will remain a working draft until data collection begins, as changes are likely. Each version will be dated to ensure the most recent version is being used.  When a new version is released, reporting carriers will be notified and will receive the document via email. The Instructions to Air Carriers for Collecting and Reporting Passenger Origin-Destination Survey Data is available at https://esubmit.rita.dot.gov/OD-US-40.aspx.
 

Please email OAI.OD40.Support@dot.gov with the reason why you believe your carrier should be removed from the Reporting Carrier List. If it is determined that your carrier does not need to report, an updated list will be posted reflecting the removal of your carrier.

Please email OAI.OD40.Support@dot.gov with your carrier’s name, contact information (phone/email), carrier code and demonstrate a hardship to reporting.

Airlines must submit their data within 45 days after the end of the reporting period. If the 45th day falls on a weekend or U.S. national holiday, the submission is due the next business day. The carrier will receive immediate feedback on submissions if there are filename or data field formatting errors. If there are errors found during the data validation process, feedback will be provided as soon as possible. If a data resubmission is required, the carrier will be required to resubmit within 5 days after notification, unless other arrangements are made with Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Office of Airline Information (BTS OAI).  

The ticket should be reported in the month when the first segment is traveled, unless the ticket is a Category Two ticket, which should be reported for the first month that the ticket is recognized by a Reporting Carrier’s revenue accounting system.

The file name should be the two or three letter character carrier code, year and month.  For example, BA202507.CSV would be the file name for data filed by British Airways for July 2025.
 

• There are multiple quality assurance checks that can be performed before a carrier submits data, including verifying:
• The file format is .CSV.
• The file name follow the format: [CarrierCode][Year of Submission][Month of Submission].
• The year is 4 digits.
• The month is 2 digits.
• The Record Identification Number (RIN) field follows the format: CarrierCode (either 2 or 3 characters), followed by the year of submission, followed by month of submission, and then a sequential number starting at 00000001. For example, the first itinerary’s RIN of United Airlines’ July 2025 file should be: UA20250700000001.
• The Total Amount is:
  • Is submitted with two decimal places.
  • Is not less than the Tax Amount (unless Tax Amount is $0, as Tax Amount is included in Total Amount).
  • Is not greater than $50,000. For itineraries with Total Amount greater than $50,000, please verify the U.S. currency conversion, and if valid, send an email to OAI.OD40.Support@dot.gov to let the Office of Airline Information (OAI) know that it is a valid fare.
  • Is not less than $0.
  • The Tax Amount is:
  • Is submitted with two decimal places.
  • Is not greater than $1,999. For itineraries with Tax Amount greater than $1,999, send an email to OAI.OD40.Support@dot.gov to let the Office of Airline Information (OAI) know that the taxes are valid and provide an explanation for why the taxes are high.
• Reporting Carrier, Issuing Carrier, Operating Carrier and Marketing Carrier codes are 2 or 3 character airline codes, unless surface segments are involved. If an itinerary has a surface segment, Operating Carrier and Market Carrier may not be airline codes (see below).
• Surface Segments:
  • If there is a surface segment in the itinerary, and it is non-carrier ticketed transportation, the dwell time should be ‘-1’, the operating carrier should be ‘--’ (hyphen hyphen), and the marketing carrier should be ‘--’ (hyphen hyphen).  
  • If there is a surface segment in the itinerary, and it is carrier ticketed transportation, the dwell time should be ‘-1’, the operating carrier should be ‘TRN’ for train or ‘BUS’ for bus segments, and the marketing carrier should be the 2 or 3 character airline code of the carrier. 
• The Dwell Time value is between 1 and 1440, -1, or 9999. In Category Two reporting, ‘B’ or blank are also valid values.
• The Purchase Window Group value is 2290, 91UP, or 21AP. In Category Two reporting, this value can also be NULL.

If a carrier has multiple .CSV files to submit, is the RIN Number to start new on each file or continue from the previous file?

If there are multiple .CSV files, the RIN should start at 000000001 in the first file. For subsequent files, the RIN should continue from where the last RIN in the previous file left off.

For E-Submit, each .CSV file within a .ZIP file should be limited to 1 million records. If a carrier needs to submit more than 1 million records, please consider using the SFTP process instead of E-Submit. If submitting multiple .CSV files, ensure that the Record Identification Number (RIN) continues sequentially across files. For example, if the RIN of the last record in the first .CSV file is XX250701000000, the RIN of the first record in the second .CSV file should be XX250701000001.

No, bulk contract fares, which were submitted as ‘99999’ in O&D 10% reporting, are not to be submitted in O&D 40%. Each passenger’s itinerary Total Amount should be based on the ticket data.
 

If the Scheduled Flight Year/Month for a surface segment is not known, report the Scheduled Flight Year/Month of the previous coupon and ensure that your carrier accounts for the dwell time at the airport where the passenger arrived before continuing their itinerary. In most cases, this dwell time will be indicated with ‘9999’.

Yes, if the Reporting Carrier does not know any portion of the Total Amount for a Category Two ticket, they may report the Total Amount as ‘Null’ (blank).  If the Reporting Carrier knows the prorated amount for their portion of travel, that amount should be reported in the Total Amount field.

Yes, if the Reporting Carrier’s calculation of dwell time results in a negative or zero amount, the Dwell Time field can be submitted as 'Null' (blank).

• Any ticket with first segment usage before July 2025, even if the rest of the segments occur in July or later, is not to be reported in the OD40 data. If the ticket sequence number ends in zero, the ticket should be reported in the 2025 Q2 data.
• Any ticket with first segment usage before July 2025, even if the carrier’s revenue accounting system does not recognize the ticket until July 2025, is not to be reported in the OD40 data.
• Any ticket issued by a non-OD40 reporting carrier with the first segment usage before July 2025, and recognized by the first OD40 reporting carrier in their revenue accounting system in July 2025 or later, should not be reported in the OD40 data. 
• Any ticket with the intention to fly the first segment in June 2025 or any prior month, but revalidated so that the passenger begins their first segment of travel in July 2025, should not be reported in the OD40 data.

The O&D data are compared to schedules in the Official Airline Guide (OAG), so please ensure that your carrier submits accurate and complete schedule information to the OAG. The O&D data will also be validated against the carrier’s T100 submission.
 

Yes, the first Scheduled Flight Year/Month may be after the second coupon’s Scheduled Flight Year/Month and the Reporting Year/Month.  For example, for a passenger departing Taiwan (TPE) on February 1, 2026 and arriving in San Francisco (SFO) on January 31, 2026 due to time zone change, the second coupon’s Scheduled Flight Year/Month is listed as 2026-01, which is before the first coupon’s Scheduled Flight Year/Month of 2026-02.

To resubmit data, follow the same process as for the original submission. The file name is to be the same as of the originally submitted name.

No, 19-7 Reporting Directives do not apply to 19-8.  If Reporting Directives need to be released for 19-8, they will be posted to the site of: https://www.bts.gov/accounting-reporting-directives. The carriers will also be notified via email.