U.S. airlines carried 61.0 million scheduled systemwide passengers in April 2013, 0.9 percent fewer than in April 2012, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reports.
The systemwide decrease was the result of a 0.9 percent decrease in the number of domestic passengers (53.2 million) and a 0.6 percent decrease in international passengers (7.8 million), BTS says.
BTS said that U.S. airlines carried 0.2 percent more total system (domestic + international) passengers during the first four months of 2013 (233.9 million) than during the same period in 2012.
Domestically, U.S. airlines carried 203.3 million passengers, unchanged from 2012 . Internationally, they carried 30.6 million passengers, up 1.5 percent from 2012.
The system load factor of 81.6 percent, the domestic load factor of 82.8 percent and the international load factor of 78.8 percent all declined from April 2012 as airlines increased both domestic and international capacity.
Load factor is a measure of the use of aircraft capacity that compares Revenue Passenger-Miles (RPMs) as a proportion of Available Seat-Miles (ASMs).
Visit www.dot.gov