US airlines carried 7.7% more domestic passenger and flew 3.9% more domestic flights during the first 11 months of this year than the same period last year, according to the US Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
The passengers were carried on 9.1 million flights, up 3.9% from the 8.8 million in 2003.
In other comparisons for the first 11 months of 2004:
• An often used measure of passengers and distance flow, revenue passenger miles, was up 10.4%.
• A measure of airline capacity, available seat-miles, was also up 7.6%.
• Load factors were up 1.9%.
• Passenger trip length, or the average distance passengers travel, was also up 2.6%.
The Bureau found that Southwest Airlines carried more passengers than any other airline, 74.5 million.
For domestic travel, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International was the busiest for domestic travel with 34.5 million passenger boardings.
Report by David Wilkening
