The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reports that 815.3 million scheduled passengers traveled on U.S. airlines and on foreign airlines serving the United States in 2012. This is a 1.3 percent increase from 2011.
BTS reported that U.S. airlines carried 0.6 percent more domestic passengers in 2012 and 2.0 percent more international passengers than in 2011 for a systemwide increase of 0.8 percent. The number of passengers traveling to and from the United States on foreign carriers increased 6.8 percent from 2011.
This annual release includes data on U.S. carrier scheduled domestic and international service and foreign carrier scheduled international service to and from the United States.
The upward trend of international passenger numbers continued with increases from each month of 2011 to the same month in 2012 but domestic numbers decreased from the corresponding month of 2011 during the fall, BTS said.
Delta Air Lines carried more total system passengers in 2012 than any other U.S. airline for the third consecutive year. United Airlines, following its merger with Continental Airlines, carried more international passengers to and from the United States in 2012 than any other U.S. or foreign carrier.
More total system passengers boarded planes in 2012 at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International than at any other U.S. airport; and more international passengers boarded planes at New York John F. Kennedy than at any other U.S. airport.
Despite a 2.4 percent rise in revenue passenger-miles, a 1.2 percent increase in capacity, measured in available seat-mikes, resulted in a 0.9 point rise in load factor to 82.5, the highest annual load factor on record for U.S. carriers and foreign carriers serving the United States.
U.S. carriers and foreign carriers serving the United States operated 9.8 million domestic and international flights in 2012, 1.7 percent fewer than in 2011.
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