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) | 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.