The most fundamental data to any analysis of the airline industry are traffic, capacity and the relationship of one to the other. Traffic, measured by revenue passenger miles (RPMs), and capacity, measured by available seat miles (ASMs), are together used to determine Average Load Factor (ALF) – the proportion of airline output that is actually sold. In turn, these metrics provide the basis for measures of unit revenue and unit costs. 

Over time, the ADP will include additional data for domestic and international operations, including a breakdown of traffic and capacity trends by region – Latin America, the Transatlantic and the Transpacific. We also will provide analysis of recent airline strategies to shift flying from domestic operations to international routes and provide airport-specific analysis to assess an airline’s presence in a particular market. 

Given that other public sources for origin and destination (O&D) traffic are available, this section provides less detail in this area. Like other aggregate data included on this site, traffic and capacity information is taken from airline Form 41 filings with the U.S. Department of Transportation and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do encourage you to examine the domestic profiles for each carrier in the revenue and related section of ADP which are derived from the O&D data. An examination of traffic is not complete without an analysis of average fares and revenue.