Who's the Biggest?

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has a new method of reporting air traffic, which, it says, can distort year-to-year comparisons. However, it believes it's a better method, and will be used in the future -- so, from now on, we're cut off from the past, but at least we shouldn't be confused.

U.S. airlines carried 47.4 million domestic passengers in April, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported today in a release of preliminary data. Effective October 2002, commuter and small certificated carriers were required to begin reporting domestic enplaned data. The addition of this new data has a distorting effect on year-over-year domestic enplanement comparisons, but represents the new way that this (sic) data will be announced.

For example, the April 2003 data include 3,163,281 domestic enplanements that were reported by these relatively new reporting carriers. Thus, the same carrier year over year comparison in April 2003 would total 44,234,664 domestic enplanements this year -- or a 2.6 percent decrease -- compared to the prior year's April results.

Total domestic enplanements were 3.8 percent lower in April 2003 compared to March 2003 for all domestic flights operated by U.S. airlines. Month-to-month changes can be affected by seasonal factors. [...and, this year, by the SARS effect --ed.]

Top Ten Airlines, ranked by April Domestic Enplanements (in parentheses)

• Delta Airlines, Inc. (6,974,199)
• Southwest Airlines Co. (6,332,410)
• American Airlines, Inc. (6,310,554)
• United Airlines, Inc. (4,844,612)
• Northwest Airlines, Inc. (3,907,410)
• US Airways, Inc. (3,321,963)
• Continental Airlines, Inc. (2,686,997)
• America West Airlines, Inc. (1,668,638)
• American Eagle Airlines, Inc. (1,027,069)
• Alaska Airlines, Inc. (1,000,331)

Top 10 Airports ranked by April Domestic Enplanements

• Hartsfield International, Atlanta, ATL
• O'Hare International, Chicago, ORD
• Dallas-Ft.Worth International, DFW
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International, PHX
• Los Angeles International, LAX
• Denver International, DEN
• Las Vegas-McCarran International, LAS
• Minneapolis-St.Paul International, MSP
• Orlando International, MCO
• George Bush Intercontinental

Data are compiled from monthly reports filed with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics by commercial air carriers detailing operations, passenger traffic and freight traffic. April traffic data are preliminary and include data received by BTS as of July 1. Data are subject to revision.

FMI: http://transtats.bts.gov