Passenger revenue of US-based airlines plunges by 19% in February 2009

Passenger revenue of airlines based in the United States has dropped by 19% in February 2009, compared to February 2008 – the decline applying to both domestic flights as well as flights across the Atlantic and the Pacific and to Latin American countries.

This is the fourth successive month that witnessed a decline in passenger revenue, according to the Air Transport Association of America (ATA), based in Washington, the United States.

Members of the Air Transport Association of America, the leading trade group of the principal airlines based in the United States, and its affiliates transport over 90% of airline passengers as well as cargo traffic in the US.
The number of travellers, the Air Transport Association said in a statement, went down by 12% and the amount paid to travel each mile fell by 8%.

John Heimlich, the Air Transport Association’s chief economist, said “the sharp decline in spending by passengers and shippers demonstrates how the global recession is taking an increasing toll on the travelling public as well as on time-sensitive cargo shipments.” He added in the statement that the worldwide economic slowdown was forcing further capacity reductions despite “the meaningful drop in the prices of fuel.”

Commercial aviation, according to the ATA statement, is “a $1.1 trillion economic driver for the United States” and provides 10 million jobs.

The ATA said that Washington is the most trade-dependent state in the United States, with over half of the country’s exports, as measured by value, being transported by air.

Cargo traffic – as measured by one ton of cargo flown one mile – fell by 21% in January 2009, but cargo-traffic data for February 2009 was not available, the Air Transport Association said.

Aviation analysts note that the slump in passenger revenue of the United States-based airlines comes in the midst of the recession in which the United States economy got reduced by 6.2% – the fastest pace of shrinking since 1982.

American Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, the United States, reported a 14% decline in passenger traffic in February 2009. American Airlines is the second largest United States-based carrier.

United Airlines, a subsidiary of the UAL Corporation and the third-largest airline based in the United States, has reported that its revenue for the first quarter is likely to fall by 13.3% as a result of the slump in demand for air travel. A statement from the airline added that its traffic, as measured in miles flown by paying passengers, went down by 17% in February 2009.
Delta Air Lines, based in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, and which became the world’s biggest airline after it bought Northwest Airlines, said in a press release that that it saw its passenger traffic dropping by 8.8% in February 2009.