US Airline Traffic Down in 2009

By Dunstan Prial
FOXBusiness

Airline traffic in the U.S. fell to a five-year low in 2009 as the recession cut demand and record fuel costs raised the price of flying, the Department of Transportation reported on Thursday.
Yet there were fewer empty seats than ever, the government data revealed.
For all of 2009, traffic fell 5.3% to 703.9 million. Meanwhile, load factor – the way airlines measure the number of people aboard each plane – was 80.4% for the entire system and 81.1% for domestic flights, both record highs.
Southwest Airlines (LUV: 13.05, 0.04, 0.31%) carried the most total system and domestic passengers. AMR Corp.’s (AMR: 9.54, -0.07, -0.73%) American Airlines was the top carrier of international travelers. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International again was the busiest airport system-wide and domestically, and Miami International again had the most passengers traveling internationally.
According to the data, airlines carried 0.6% fewer passengers in December than a year earlier, returning to a decline after Novembers year-on-year increase snapped 18 straight months of slumping traffic.
For December, airlines carried 57 million passengers while load factor hit 80.4%, a record high for the month. Capacity fell 2.7%.

Thursday, March 11, 2010
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The demand for airline flights greatly decreased during the recession. Travel was cut as Americans had less money to spend. The high costs of fuel in years past had raised the cost of flying as well. The airlines had fewer empty seats, they wanted the planes as full as possible to raise the efficiency for each flight.