System Traffic Up 2.3 Percent from June 2009

If the amount of airline traffic is an indication of economic recovery, then it would appear that things are at least showing some progress. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported in a release of preliminary data Thursday that U.S. airlines carried 65.0 million scheduled domestic and international passengers in June 2010. This is a 2.3 percent increase from June 2009. But the June 2010 passenger total was still 4.4 percent below that of two years ago in June 2008.

BTS, a part of DOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, also reported that U.S. airlines carried 1.4 percent more domestic passengers in June 2010 than in June 2009.  The number of international passengers on U.S. carriers increased 8.4 percent over June 2009. The June 2010 load factors of 86.2 percent systemwide, 86.3 percent domestic and 85.9 percent international were the highest recorded for any June.

Additional traffic numbers can be found on the BTS website in the Airline Industry box.  Click on a link in the column on the right. For more historic numbers, see Traffic on the BTS website.

For the first six months of 2010, the number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines increased 1.2 percent from the same period in 2009 to 349.5 million. The number of passengers declined 8.0 percent from the first six months of 2008 to the first six months of 2010.
U.S. airlines carried 0.7 percent more domestic passengers and 4.3 percent more international passengers in the first six months of 2010 than during the same period in 2009.

FMI: www.bts.gov