Scheduled-service passenger enplanements dropped 3.1 percent between August and September 2017, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. This dip in systemwide domestic and international passenger enplanements represents a second consecutive month of declining numbers for the travel industry.
Seasonally adjusted numbers show a 3 percent decline in domestic enplanements between August and September, while international enplanements to and from the United States dropped 3.8 percent. Together, this accounts for the 3.1 percent systemwide decline.
Between September 2016 and September 2017, domestic enplanements declined 1.65 percent, but international enplanements to and from the United States dipped only 0.4 percent, representing an overall 1.4 percent decline in enplanements systemwide.
The three-year numbers, however, tell a different story. Between September 2014 and September 2017, domestic enplanements rose 8 percent, and international enplanements rose 4.34 percent, creating a 7.5 percent increase in systemwide passenger enplanements.
Trends in U.S. Airline Traffic
Systemwide passenger enplanements reached an all-time high of 71.4 million in July 2017. Those numbers dipped to 68.6 million in September 2017, a 3.8 percent decrease. July 2017 also showed the highest recorded numbers of domestic passenger enplanements, at 62.3 million. Those numbers fell 3.7 percent to 60 million in September. Enplanements of passengers traveling internationally either to or from the United States reached their peak, 9.1 million, in April 2017. By September 2017 that number had fallen 5.2 percent to 8.6 million.
Similarly, systemwide revenue passenger miles (RPMs) reached an all-time seasonally adjusted high of 81.12 billion in July 2017. By September 2017 systemwide RPMs had fallen to 78.4 billion, a 3.4 percent drop, with domestic RPMs down 3.9 percent and international RPMs down 3.3 percent from their seasonally adjusted highs.
Available seat miles (ASM) were also down. Domestic ASM measured 66.45 billion in September 2017, down 2.5 percent from the all-time seasonally adjusted high of 68.2 billion reached in August 2017. International ASM dipped to 28.7 billion for September 2017, 1.3 percent less than the the all-time seasonally adjusted high of 29 billion in June 2017. Collectively, systemwide ASM dipped to 95.1 billion in September 2017, down 2 percent from July 2017’s all-time seasonally adjusted high of 97 billion.
Load factor, which the BTS defines as “a measure of the use of aircraft capacity that compares the system use, measured in RPM as a proportion of system capacity, measured ASM,” fell slightly between August and September 2017 because of the system capacity decrease, as shown by the aforementioned drop in both ASM and RPM. The systemwide load factor, which had reached its all-time seasonally adjusted high of 84.8 points in October 2015, measured 82.4 points for September 2017.
More information on seasonally adjusted trends and additional data can be found on the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ seasonally adjusted data page.
