Source: Dallas News
Author: Terry Maxon
With JetBlue Airways' filing of its December and full year traffic on Friday, we've got all the big carriers reporting. Here are some observations:
The four largest carriers – United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines – all operated less capacity in 2012 than in 2011. The next five carriers increased their capacity.
United, the world's largest airline, saw its margin in traffic over No. 2 Delta shrink. In 2011, it led Delta by 13.48 billion revenue passenger miles. In 2012, the lead dropped to 9.85 billion. Put another way, it was 8 percent larger than Delta in 2011, 5.8 percent larger in 2012.
In capacity, United had a lead of 15.99 billion available seat miles in 2011, 15.48 billion in 2012. United was 7.9 percent larger than Delta in capacity in 2011, 7.7 percent in 2012.
You may have noticed that the gap shrank more quickly in traffic than capacity. That would indicate that Delta was showing better results on load factor.
In fact, Delta's load factor went up 1.7 points to 84.4 percent. United's went up 0.1 points to 82.9 percent. (United was 0.1 point ahead of Delta in 2011, 1.5 points behind in 2012.)
Overall for U.S. carriers, traffic in revenue passenger miles and absolute passengers increased only about 1 percent in 2012 over 2011.
Capacity in available seat miles was up less, 0.2 percent, helping the carriers show a 0.7 percentage point increase in load factors, to 83.0 percent.
Here are the charts for the U.S. airlines that we have in hand. Traffic is thousands of revenue passenger miles; capacity is thousands of available seat miles. We put full year results first, followed by December's results.
Full year
Traffic 2012 2011 Change
Alaska 24,417,000 22,586,000 8.1%
Allegiant 6,220,320 5,314,976 17.0%
American 126,350,862 126,443,353 -0.1%
Delta 169,562,740 168,282,394 0.8%
Frontier 12,108,734 12,899,243 -6.1%
Great Lakes 169,929 162,893 4.3%
Hawaiian 12,217,635 10,151,216 20.4%
Horizon 2,090,000 2,131,000 -1.9%
JetBlue 33,563,177 30,697,903 9.3%
Republic minus Frontier 8590069 8062205 6.5%
SkyWest 30,088,278 29,109,039 3.4%
Southwest 102,874,979 103,864,488 -1.0%
United 179,415,806 181,763,454 -1.3%
US Airways 64,880,446 63,077,319 2.9%
Total 772,549,975 764,545,483 1.0%
Capacity 2012 2011 Change
Alaska 28,180,000 26,517,000 6.3%
Allegiant 6,954,408 5,797,753 20.0%
American 152,547,989 154,254,350 -1.1%
Delta 200,851,060 203,449,949 -1.3%
Frontier 13,773,708 15,036,619 -8.4%
Great Lakes 397,160 370,376 7.2%
Hawaiian 14,687,472 12,039,937 22.0%
Horizon 2,669,000 2,726,000 -2.1%
JetBlue 40,075,196 37,232,367 7.6%
Republic minus Frontier 11,571,934 11,191,105 3.4%
SkyWest 37,278,554 36,698,859 1.6%
Southwest 128,137,684 128,518,201 -0.3%
United 216,330,246 219,436,755 -1.4%
US Airways 77,510,211 75,755,251 2.3%
Total 930,964,622 929,024,522 0.2%
Load factors 2012 2011 Change
Alaska 86.6% 85.2% 1.5
Allegiant 89.4% 91.7% -2.2
American 82.8% 82.0% 0.9
Delta 84.4% 82.7% 1.7
Frontier 87.9% 85.8% 2.1
Great Lakes 42.8% 44.0% -1.2
Hawaiian 83.2% 84.3% -1.1
Horizon 78.3% 78.2% 0.1
JetBlue 83.8% 82.4% 1.3
Republic minus Frontier 74.2% 72.0% 2.2
SkyWest 80.7% 79.3% 1.4
Southwest 80.3% 80.8% -0.5
United 82.9% 82.8% 0.1
US Airways 83.7% 83.3% 0.4
Total 83.0% 82.3% 0.7
December
Traffic 2012 2011 Change
Alaska 2,105,000 1,941,000 8.4%
Allegiant 569,483 502,639 13.3%
American 10,464,385 10,232,734 2.3%
Delta 13,037,698 12,823,623 1.7%
Frontier 933,164 1,040,748 -10.3%
Great Lakes 12,080 14,054 -14.0%
Hawaiian 1,095,269 892,269 22.8%
Horizon 179,000 170,000 5.3%
JetBlue 2,867,642 2,703,140 6.1%
Republic minus Frontier 751,130 651,950 15.2%
SkyWest 2,441,508 2,404,227 1.6%
Southwest 8,174,930 8,195,341 -0.2%
United 14,133,815 14,734,668 -4.1%
US Airways 5,182,069 5,091,575 1.8%
Total 61,947,173 61,397,968 0.9%
Capacity 2012 2011 Change
Alaska 2,440,000 2,220,000 9.9%
Allegiant 662,583 566,271 17.0%
American 12,971,383 12,659,469 2.5%
Delta 15,631,380 15,715,017 -0.5%
Frontier 1,069,737 1,219,821 -12.3%
Great Lakes 31,851 29,854 6.7%
Hawaiian 1,371,367 1,077,262 27.3%
Horizon 226,000 216,000 4.6%
JetBlue 3,578,250 3,371,201 6.1%
Republic minus Frontier 991,551 931,519 6.4%
SkyWest 3,046,921 3,062,892 -0.5%
Southwest 10,479,165 10,454,875 0.2%
United 17,084,679 18,018,838 -5.2%
US Airways 6,264,350 6,251,676 0.2%
Total 75,849,217 75,794,695 0.1%
Load factors 2012 2011 Change
Alaska 86.3% 87.4% -1.2
Allegiant 85.9% 88.8% -2.8
American 80.7% 80.8% -0.2
Delta 83.4% 81.6% 1.8
Frontier 87.2% 85.3% 1.9
Great Lakes 37.9% 47.1% -9.1
Hawaiian 79.9% 82.8% -3.0
Horizon 79.2% 78.7% 0.5
JetBlue 80.1% 80.2% 0.0
Republic minus Frontier 75.8% 70.0% 5.8
SkyWest 80.1% 78.5% 1.6
Southwest 78.0% 78.4% -0.4
United 82.7% 81.8% 1.0
US Airways 82.7% 81.4% 1.3
Total 81.67% 81.01% 0.7
Unit revenues
Allegiant -6% to -7%
AMR +1.6%
Delta +4%
JetBlue +2%
Southwest Flat
United Continental +2.5 – 3.5%
US Airways +4%