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Traffic
- AU Australia: domestic capacity and demand Over four decades Australian domestic traffic has grown faster than airline capacity, so planes fly steadily fuller.
- AU Australia: international capacity and utilisation International seat capacity into Australia has roughly quadrupled since the early nineties, and airlines now fill far more of those seats.
- AU Australia: Australian vs foreign carrier share (international) Australian airlines' share of the country's international passengers held near two-fifths until the late nineties, fell to about a third by the early two-thousands and has changed little since, apart from a pandemic dip.
- AU Australia: top international carrier market shares Qantas's share of Australia's international traffic has fallen by more than half since the mid-eighties. Over the same years Jetstar and Emirates rose from nothing to sizeable shares.
- AU Australia: domestic vs international passenger mix Both domestic and international travel in Australia have grown strongly since the mid-eighties. International has grown faster, so its share of all passengers has risen.
- AU Quarterly passenger distribution by era The post-COVID era shows the widest seasonal swing and is the only one whose quietest quarter is the first. The extra width comes from its first year alone; without it the swing is half as wide and no longer the widest.
- BR Brazil: capacity vs demand (passenger-km, seat-km, load factor) Brazilian air traffic has grown faster than seat capacity since the turn of the century, and planes are now at their fullest on record.
- BR Azul went from launch in 2008 to 30% of passengers flown by Brazilian airlines by 2024 Passengers flown by Brazilian airlines are now split among three big carriers, with Azul rising from its launch to rival GOL.
- BR Brazil: domestic vs international passenger mix Brazil's air market is dominated by domestic flying, which outnumbers international passengers by more than three to one.
- BR Brazil: domestic vs international share of passenger-km Measured in distance flown, international trips still account for the majority of Brazilian air travel, though domestic has gained ground.
- BR Airlines flying before GOL's 2001 launch carried 41% of Brazilian airlines' passengers by 2025 The share of Brazilian airlines' passengers carried by airlines that flew before GOL's launch fell to about a third by the late twenty-tens. Outside the pandemic dip it has risen since, to about two-fifths.
- BR Brazil: seasonal pattern by era Brazil's seasonal peaks and troughs have widened sharply over three decades, with the second half of the year pulling well ahead of a quieter first half.
- CA Canada: seasonal pattern by era Canada's summer peak barely moves across eras. The post-COVID era shows the weakest winter and strongest year-end, but the wider swing comes from its first year alone; without it the swing is the narrowest of any era.
- CA Canada: domestic / transborder / international passenger mix Domestic flights still carry the largest share of passengers through Canadian airports, but a shrinking one. Other international routes have gained at its expense, while the United States share is about where it began.
- CN Aviation's share of China's combined air and rail travel rose from 25% to 46% over two decades Rail still carries the larger part of China's combined air and rail travel. The shares are of distance travelled, so longer air trips raise aviation's share even if people fly no more often.
- CN China: airline group market share (annual) China's three state-owned carrier groups still carry most passengers. Their combined share fell through the twenty-tens and into the pandemic, and has edged back up since.
- CN China: flight on-time regularity Chinese flights run more on time than a decade ago. The peak came in the pandemic years, when traffic had collapsed, and the chart cannot separate lighter traffic from better operations.
- CN China: passenger load factor by route type Chinese planes flew consistently full until COVID, when load factors fell sharply, international routes most of all. By the latest year both domestic and international were within half a point of their pre-COVID levels.
- CN China: national passenger traffic (quarterly) Chinese air passengers have grown more than fivefold in two decades, with the COVID collapse a deep but temporary interruption.
- EU Country share of reporting European air passengers (2025) Among the European countries in the data, Spain carries the largest share of passengers, ahead of Germany, Italy and France. The total covers the reporting countries only, so it is not the whole of Europe.
- EU Air passenger traffic: selected European markets (indexed, first observed quarter = 100) Poland's air traffic has grown more than tenfold, by far the most of these European markets, while France and Germany have grown the least. Each line starts from that country's first quarter in the data.
- IN India: domestic passenger share by carrier IndiGo now carries nearly two-thirds of India's domestic passengers. Over the same decade the shares of Jet Airways and Go First fell to zero.
- IN India: international passengers by carrier nationality Foreign airlines still carry just over half of India's international passengers, though Indian carriers stepped up their share around COVID.
- IN India: top international markets by country (2025) The Gulf dominates India's international travel: the UAE alone accounts for nearly a third, more than the next four countries combined.
- IN India: domestic passenger traffic (quarterly) Indian domestic air travel has roughly tripled in a decade and a half, ending the sample at its all-time peak despite the COVID collapse.
- IN India: passenger seasonality, 2013–2019 vs 2023–2025 Indian air travel peaks in December in both periods, and the seasonal swing is gentler than a decade ago. The quietest month has moved from February to July.
- JP Japan: domestic vs international passengers (indexed, 2012 Q1 = 100) Japanese airlines' international traffic has outgrown their domestic traffic over the past decade or so. After deep COVID troughs, domestic is back at its pre-COVID level while international is still short of it.
- JP Japan: load factor trend Japanese planes fly fuller than ever, with seat occupancy ending the sample at its record high.
- MX Mexico: domestic vs international (indexed, 2006 Q1 = 100) Mexican domestic air travel has more than tripled since the turn of the century while international more than doubled. Domestic pulled ahead in a burst before the financial crisis, and the two have grown alike since.
- SG Singapore air traffic averaged 189 passengers per aircraft movement in 2025 Q4, up from 90 in 1980 Q1 Each aircraft movement in Singapore carries roughly twice as many passengers as at the start of the eighties. The chart shows that ratio only, not whether aircraft grew larger, flew fuller or both.
- SG Same-aircraft transit passengers fell from 14% of Singapore air traffic in 1980 to under 1% in 2025 Transit passengers who stay on the same aircraft through Singapore have nearly vanished, from about one in seven at the start of the eighties to under one percent; flight-changers are not counted here.
- UK UK: domestic vs international (indexed, 2016 Q1 = 100) Comparing like quarters a decade apart, UK international air travel is up by roughly a quarter while domestic flying is down.
- US Capacity utilisation: available seat-miles vs load factor Planes are far fuller than in the mid-nineties. Seat capacity kept growing while the share of seats sold climbed steeply, most of it before the twenty-tens.
- US Share of available seat-miles: major carriers Over three decades United, Delta and American have clustered near a fifth of capacity each, with Southwest's long climb behind them.
- US Top 15 carriers by available seat-miles (2024) United edges Delta and American at the top of the latest capacity ranking, and the three stand well clear of every other carrier.
- US US vs foreign carrier share US and foreign airlines each carry about half of US international traffic in the latest year. Foreign airlines led clearly in the late nineties and again just before the pandemic, and US airlines led by more during it.
- US US vs foreign carrier share by region (2024) US carriers dominate only in Latin America; foreign airlines carry most passengers to Canada, Europe and Asia.
- US International passengers by market region Latin America and the Caribbean has become the largest US international market, roughly quadrupling over three decades.
- US US international air passengers US international air travel has more than tripled since the early nineties, with the latest full year setting a new record.
- US Top 20 international carriers (2024) American, United and Delta top the international rankings, with JetBlue a distant fourth ahead of the biggest foreign flags.
- US Top 6 destination trends Canada was the top US international destination in every year before the pandemic. Mexico overtook it in the first pandemic year and has stayed ahead since.
- US Top 15 international destinations (2024) Mexico, Canada and the UK are the top three US international destinations, together taking over a third of international passengers leaving the US.
- US Capacity vs demand: available seat-miles, revenue passenger-miles and load factor Seat supply and passenger traffic across three and a half decades, at two measurement scopes: demand grew faster than capacity, so planes fly far fuller now.
- US US air travel more than doubled since 1990 and has recovered past its COVID collapse US passengers each quarter across three and a half decades. The site's US demand models try to explain this series.
- US Summer is the peak quarter of US air travel in 31 of 36 years; the widest swings are 2020 and 2021 Each row is a year and each cell one quarter's passengers against that year's average. The first quarter is the lowest in all but three of the years, and the third almost always the highest.
- US State seasonal heterogeneity: Q3-Q1 amplitude Northern states like Maine and Alaska swing hardest toward summer, while Florida and Arizona are busier in winter than in summer.
- US Airport security counts arrive about three months before the official passenger data TSA screening counts arrive about three months ahead of the official passenger figures and move with them at a steady ratio. The nowcast applies that ratio to the quarter still being counted and is not a demand model.
Fleet
- US Airbus A320 generation mix In the Airbus narrow-body family, neo counts are accelerating while the older ceo fleet has begun to shrink.
- US Active vs inactive fleet Aircraft filed as operating have climbed since the early twenty-tens to their highest count on the chart, while those filed as inactive spiked in the pandemic and fell back. The chart counts filings, not airframes.
- US Maintenance cost per flight hour is about 4 times as high for a fleet averaging 35 years old as for one averaging 1 year Older fleets cost more to maintain per flight hour, on one age slope for every aircraft class. At any age the wide-body curve sits well above the narrow-body one and the regional curve a little below it.
- US Boeing 737 generation mix In Boeing's narrow-body family the NG dominates, the Classic has nearly vanished and the MAX count is rising.
- US Top 15 carriers by fleet size (2024) United, American and Delta operate nearly identical fleet sizes, with Southwest the clear fourth.
- US Fleet size by category Narrow-body jets are where fleet growth happens; wide-body counts crept up to a recent peak, while the regional count is lower than a decade ago after an uneven path.
- US Fleet complexity: aircraft types per carrier Delta and United each operate several times as many distinct aircraft types as any low-cost carrier, with American in between.
- US At assumed GDP growth, US airlines would need about 59% more seat-miles in 2044 than they flew in 2024 In this what-if, each line grows today's seat-miles at an assumed rate of economic growth times the income elasticity. Seat-miles measure the capacity airlines fly, not the number of aircraft they need.
- US Within a family, each new generation burns less fuel than its predecessor Within each family, every newer generation burns less fuel per flying hour than the one before it. The figures are not adjusted for aircraft size, so they do not compare one family with another.
- US Southwest, United and JetBlue lead the new-generation fleet share, each near 30% New-generation aircraft make up about a fifth to a third of the fleets of the large passenger airlines shown. The cargo and regional airlines shown have none.
- US Fleet ownership: owned vs leased by carrier type Legacy carriers increasingly own their planes outright rather than lease: their owned share has climbed to more than three-quarters. Low-cost carriers' owned share rose too, then eased back to around two-thirds.
- US Pilot cost per air hour by category Pilot cost per flying hour, before adjusting for inflation, has more than doubled over two decades for every aircraft class and more than tripled for regional aircraft; wide-body crews remain the costliest.
- US By fleet age 16 the odds tip from growing the fleet to shrinking it The older a fleet of one aircraft type, the less often it grows and the more often it shrinks, though at most ages it is likeliest to stay as it is. This describes whole fleets, not one aircraft's chance of retiring.
- US Fleet decisions by aircraft category Keep, grow or shrink decisions look much alike for narrow-body and wide-body fleets; regional fleets are cut somewhat more often.
- US US fleet retirement: predicted vs observed (2015-2024 hold-out) Fitted on the years before the hold-out, the survival curves predict roughly half again as many aircraft exits as were observed in it, so the retirements and replacement deliveries built on them probably run high.
- US Narrow-bodies leave service at a median of 25 years of age Here, regional aircraft leave US service youngest, wide-bodies oldest and narrow-bodies in between. Every median is later if only aircraft reported as withdrawn count, so the result depends on how an exit is counted.
- US Top 15 aircraft types (2024) One Boeing single-aisle model is the most numerous active type by a wide margin. Boeing's and Airbus's single-aisle families fill most of the ranking; regional jets and two older Boeing types make up the rest.
- US Carrier upgauging index JetBlue, Southwest and Alaska shifted most toward bigger planes over the past decade and a half, while several carriers went the other way.
- US Fleet utilisation by category Daily flying hours per aircraft have held steady for big jets but fallen by roughly a third for regional aircraft over the past decade and a half.
Airline economics
- BR Brazil: fuel intensity (litres per departure) Comparing full years, fuel burned per departure on Brazilian airlines has risen by about a quarter since the turn of the century, ending at its record high.
- CA Canada: airline revenue and expenses (Level I-II) Canadian airline revenues have nearly doubled in dollar terms in just over a decade, with the COVID slump a deep but temporary interruption.
- CN China: airline-segment revenue & profit (¥bn) China's airlines were profitable until COVID, then posted deep losses through the pandemic and a small one the year after, before returning to a thin profit.
- IN India: active scheduled domestic carriers India has fewer active scheduled domestic airlines than a decade ago. The count peaked in the late twenty-tens and is now at its lowest; the chart does not show why any airline left.
- IN India: carrier market share, legacy vs low-cost carriers Low-cost carriers flew about two-fifths of India's domestic passengers a decade and a half ago and now carry roughly seven in ten.
- KR South Korea: market share among Korean airlines Korean Air and Asiana once carried every passenger flown by Korean airlines; low-cost carriers now hold a share rivalling both legacy airlines combined.
- US Available seat-mile growth by carrier type, year over year Low-cost carriers grew capacity by more than ten percent a year in most years from the mid-nineties to the late two-thousands but have recently been shrinking, while legacy carriers grow.
- US Cost per available seat-mile (CASM) by carrier type Low-cost carriers' unit-cost advantage over legacy airlines has persisted for three decades, and it has widened.
- US Cost per available seat-mile: fuel vs non-fuel Fuel is the volatile part of airline unit costs, but non-fuel costs make up the bulk and keep rising.
- US Industry cost vs revenue per available seat-mile Airline revenues per seat-mile have generally stayed just above costs, so the industry's operating margin has been persistently thin.
- US Fuel is the volatile band; distribution costs collapsed Over three decades fuel is the band that swings, while the cost of selling a ticket shrinks from a fifth of the bill to a twentieth.
- US Recession margin impact In each of the three recessions shown, airline unit margins went from positive to negative, and the pandemic collapse ran several times deeper than either earlier downturn.
- US Low-cost carriers spend 3.9 cents less than legacy carriers per seat-mile, but the two margins cannot be told apart Low-cost carriers spend less per seat-mile but also earn less, and the gap between the two carrier types' pooled unit margins cannot be told apart from zero.
- US Yield by carrier type Passengers pay more per mile on legacy airlines than on low-cost airlines. The gap closed around the financial crisis, briefly reversed a few years later and has widened again since.
- US Industry average yield Average revenue per passenger-mile over thirty years, with visible dips after the September attacks, the financial crisis and COVID.
- US Yield vs load factor by decade From the nineties to the twenty-tens each decade's cloud sits further right, as planes filled up. The clouds rise far less, in cents per passenger-mile, and the pandemic scatters the latest one.
- US Legacy to low-cost carrier yield ratio The ratio of legacy carriers' average yield to low-cost carriers', by quarter and as a rolling average. Both lines end at their highest: legacy carriers now earn about half as much again per mile.
- US Legacy tickets average 1.7 times the low-cost carrier fare, about $100 more Since the start of the pandemic the dollar gap between legacy and low-cost fares has widened, while the ratio of the two has narrowed slightly.
Fares
- AU Corridor-level market concentration (2019 HHI) Concentration varied widely by destination in the last pre-COVID year. One airline carried every passenger on the Qatar corridor, while the China, United States and New Zealand corridors were each shared among several.
- AU A 10% longer Australian flight costs about 3% more: fares rise far more slowly than distance Longer Australian domestic flights cost more per ticket, yet routes of much the same length can differ in fare more than threefold.
- AU Australia: domestic airfare index by class (CPI-adjusted) Australian air fares have fallen substantially in real terms since the early nineties, with discount fares dropping the most.
- US How fares move with market concentration (HHI), by hub tier Ticket prices move most with market concentration at small hubs; at large hubs, medium hubs and non-hub airports the link cannot be told apart from zero. It is a pattern in fares, not a causal price effect.
- US Inflation: airfares vs all items, year over year Airfare inflation swings far more widely than overall inflation, with deeper troughs and higher peaks quarter to quarter.
- US Real airfare index Adjusted for overall inflation, plane tickets are more than a quarter cheaper than they were in the early nineties.
- US Average fare by carrier (2025 Q2) Average ticket prices by airline span a roughly fourfold range, from Allegiant at the bottom to Delta and United at the top.
- US Discounted-coach fares dominate the ticket mix Most flights on US tickets are on discounted-coach fares, though that share has slipped since the pandemic while full-fare coach has grown.
- US Longer flights cost more in total but far less per mile The shortest flights cost roughly six times as much per mile as the longest, even though the longest cost far more in total.
- US Fares are higher on longer routes and where more travel is on unrestricted or high-fare ticket codes, and lower where more trips stay on one airline Each bar is how the fare moves with one route attribute when the others are held constant. Fares in this fit are also lower on busier routes and on more concentrated ones.
- US Average fares in nominal dollars now sit above their 2020 Q1 level Before adjusting for inflation, average US fares sank during COVID, peaked during the reopening and now sit above their level at the start of the pandemic.
- US Average fare of single-airline and multi-airline itineraries Itineraries stitched across multiple airlines cost roughly half again as much as single-airline ones, a premium that has persisted across the recorded window.
- US Long-haul routes are fewer, not thinner The longer distance bands hold fewer routes, but passengers per route are broadly similar in every band, with the longer bands slightly ahead.
- US Distance still deters flying: 1% farther means roughly 0.49% fewer passengers The first bar is the headline estimate: traffic thins as distance grows. The other bars are reference models with known weaknesses, shown for comparison and not as independent confirmation.
- US Average international trip distance by region International trips have lengthened in every region over three decades, with the average transpacific journey now over six thousand miles.
- US A round trip costs about 1.7 times a one-way fare, cheaper than buying two singles Round-trip tickets cost a bit under twice the one-way fare, except in the first year of the pandemic, when the premium shrank. It has stayed in a narrow range since.
- US Route competition structure Most US routes are one-airline monopolies (about three in five today), and the mix has shifted only slowly over three decades.
- US Passenger share by distance bucket Americans' flying has shifted longer-haul: the shortest hops' share of passengers has roughly halved over three decades as mid-to-long routes gained.
- US A 10% longer flight costs about 3% more, so fares rise far more slowly than distance Each dot is a route, sized by its passengers, and the line is the fit to the dots. Among short and medium routes, fares at a given distance still differ several-fold.
- US Within each distance band from 500 to 2,000 miles, routes with more carriers have higher fares per mile The chart keeps only routes with enough sampled tickets. Among them, more airlines go with higher fares per mile in most distance bands; only distance is held fixed, so this cannot be read as the effect of competition.
Network
- AU Australia: top 10 domestic routes by passengers, 1995 to 2025 Melbourne–Sydney is Australia's dominant domestic route, carrying well over half again as many passengers as any other city pair.
- BR Brazil: top 10 domestic routes by passenger volume The first bar, SBRJ-SBSP, is the Rio–São Paulo shuttle. It is Brazil's busiest domestic route by a wide margin, carrying more than twice the next route's passengers.
- CA Canada: top 15 airports by passenger traffic (2023) Toronto Pearson alone carries close to twice Vancouver's passengers, and the four busiest airports stand well clear of the rest of the ranking.
- CA Canada: airport movements concentration stays low (HHI 0.0540 in 1997, 0.0550 in 2019 on a fixed set of airports) Flight activity is spread thinly across Canadian airports, and its concentration barely moved from the late nineties to the eve of COVID; the small rise that shows comes mostly from airports dropping out of the table.
- CN China: average air stage length (km/trip) The average Chinese air trip has lengthened over the past decade, apart from a dip during COVID, and ends the series at its longest.
- CN China's top three airports handle 22% of passenger throughput, down from 27% in 2015 The share of China's three busiest airports was already falling before the pandemic. It dropped much further in the pandemic years and has since returned to just below its pre-COVID level.
- CN China: airport passenger throughput by region Eastern China's airports handle roughly half of national passenger throughput, and every region has recovered well past its zero-COVID-era low.
- CN China: domestic vs international route count China's route expansion has been overwhelmingly domestic. International routes collapsed in the pandemic and have not returned to their pre-COVID count.
- IN India: top international routes (2025) India's busiest international routes run through the Gulf, and Dubai is one end of four of the top ten city pairs.
- IN India: domestic route network size India's domestic network roughly doubled in a decade in city pairs flown, and cities served rose by more than half. The chart counts routes and cities and does not show what drove the growth.
- IN India: domestic route persistence (2016–2025) India's network has a stable core of long-running routes surrounded by a volatile fringe of short-lived regional connections.
- UK One airport handles 28% of UK passengers; the top four handle 63% Heathrow alone handles more UK passengers than Gatwick and Manchester combined, and the London airports together handle most UK passengers.
- US Local GDP is identified only at medium-hub and non-hub airports Passenger demand shows a measurable link to the local economy at medium-hub and non-hub airports only. At large and small hubs the estimate is too imprecise to say anything.
- US Passenger share by airport hub tier Large hubs carry a little over two-thirds of US passengers, a share that has stayed roughly flat since the turn of the century. Each year's tiers are set by airports' shares of that year's national passengers.
- US Airport traffic concentration (2024) A small share of airports carries most US passengers, and the bottom half of airports barely registers. Read the curve from the left: it climbs steeply, then flattens early.
- US International gateway market share JFK's share of US international traffic has fallen by roughly a quarter from its early-nineties average. It remains the largest gateway, ahead of LAX and Miami, whose shares have also slipped.
- US Gateway airport regional specialisation (2024) Miami's international traffic is mostly Latin American, the transatlantic is the largest region at both New York airports, and LAX is the most evenly spread.
- US Top 15 US international gateways (2024) JFK handles the most international passengers of any US airport, ahead of LAX and Miami.
- US Network concentration: top airports & hub routes The traffic shares of the ten and the twenty busiest airports have barely moved in three decades, and the share of routes touching a large hub ends about where it began, with no trend the data can confirm.
- US Fewer than three in ten US routes stay active 21 or more years; nearly one in five appears only once Route lifespans cluster at the two extremes. The largest group was active in more than twenty years and the next largest in a single year, counting years whether or not they run in a row.
- US Route count by type Point-to-point routes jump in the early two-thousands, when smaller carriers were brought into the data, so part of that rise is coverage. Since then point-to-point counts have thinned while hub-and-spoke counts held up.
- US Route entry and exit by year Airlines open and drop thousands of routes every year, mostly cancelling out. The surge of new routes in the early two-thousands is partly smaller carriers joining the data.
- US US domestic route network size Fewer airport pairs have scheduled service than in the early nineties, even though smaller carriers were added to the data in the early two-thousands. Part of the step up at that point is the wider coverage.
- US Pareto curve: cumulative traffic share In every snapshot year across three decades, the busiest tenth of routes carries most US traffic. That tenth's share was almost unchanged until the mid twenty-tens and has eased since, so the latest curves sit lower.
- US Passenger share by route type Hub-based routes carry the large majority of US passengers. Their share rose through the two-thousands to a peak in the mid twenty-tens, as point-to-point routes lost ground, and has been flat to slightly lower since.
- US Top 10 markets in 2024 historical trajectory Growth among today's busiest US routes is uneven over three and a half decades, led by Denver-Phoenix, which more than tripled, while a couple now carry less traffic than at the start.
Shocks
- AU Domestic capacity fell 7.8% and domestic passengers fell 6.7% from the first two quarters of 2001 to the last two, and all 54 routes on the top-routes list kept service Australian domestic seats and passengers both fell in the second half of the year Ansett collapsed, against a season that normally lifts them. The September attacks came days earlier, so the two cannot be separated here.
- BR Brazilian air travel fell 7.5% from 2015 to 2016 and regained its 2015 level in 2018 On full-year totals the fall took Brazilian air travel back to about where it stood four years earlier. Only part of the loss came back the following year, and a year later the total edged past the one before the fall.
- CA Canada's non-US international traffic is 4% above 2019 while domestic remains 8% below Canada's non-US international traffic has passed its pre-COVID level while domestic and US transborder flying still lag, leaving the total slightly short of it.
- CN China: regional recovery vs 2019 China's western interior led the post-COVID rebound, but its lead over the coast has since narrowed while Central China slipped to the bottom of the table.
- US COVID cut the airfare share of household budgets by 69%; car spending barely moved The airfare share of household income fell to less than a third of its pre-COVID level at the trough, then rebounded above it.
- US COVID recovery by international region Latin America is well above its pre-COVID level, while transpacific travel is still well short of its own and is the only region yet to recover.
- US No model saw the COVID trough coming; SARIMAX came closest, and the rest caught almost none of the fall SARIMAX follows the fall late: its lowest forecast comes two quarters after the actual trough. The other models dip later still or not at all.
- US COVID recovery by route type Compared quarter for quarter with the last pre-COVID year, routes between two hubs carry about the same traffic and the other two kinds more. Point-to-point routes recovered last and have led only in the latest year.
- US After COVID, the seasonal pattern was out of its pre-COVID range in 2022 and within it in 2023 and 2024 The post-COVID bars average three years. The first, when the winter quarter was unusually weak, fell outside the range expected from the pre-COVID years; the next two fell inside it.
Income
- AU Australian air travel grew 473% from 1985 to 2019 while GDP grew 184% Australian air travel grows substantially faster than the economy, among the steepest responses of the ranked markets, but its long-run test passes only with the pandemic years in the sample.
- BR Brazil: passenger decomposition, incumbent vs new entrant Brazil's passengers are split between airlines that were already flying before GOL launched and those that entered since. It is an informal comparison by carrier and does not say what caused the growth.
- BR Brazilian air travel grew 230% from 2000 to 2019 while GDP grew 54% As a yearly rate over those years, Brazilian air travel grew almost three times as fast as the economy. Its estimated income response is the steepest of any ranked market, though part may reflect new airlines entering.
- CN Chinese passenger traffic grew 127% from 2011 to 2019 while GDP grew 74% Each dot plots one quarter's Chinese passengers against economic output. Before the pandemic the dots climb in a tight line; the pandemic quarters fall far below it, and the latest sit under where that line would lead.
- Cross-Market Air travel grows roughly in step with GDP in the US, faster in Australia and far faster in Brazil The ranked markets are in order of how strongly air travel moves with income. For each one, at least one repeat of the test on pre-COVID years alone disagrees about that long-run link.
- Cross-Market Australia's elasticity does not depend on any one crisis control; Brazil's and Singapore's do Australia, Brazil and Singapore still pass the bounds test and stay inside their published intervals when any control but the pandemic-trough one is dropped. Without that one, Canada's off-ladder estimate roughly halves.
- Cross-Market When air traffic and GDP drift apart, it is air traffic that closes the gap In the few markets where a long-run link is supported, when air traffic and national income drift apart it is air traffic that adjusts back; income barely moves. Most of the markets tested are not on this chart.
- Cross-Market GDP helps predict air traffic in 10 of 19 markets and air traffic helps predict GDP in 5 markets Past income helps predict air travel in more markets than air travel helps predict income, and in many markets neither helps predict the other. These are tests of prediction only.
- EU Air passengers in 14 EU countries grew 115% from 2002 to 2019 while their real GDP grew 23% The aggregate sums the EU countries that report in every quarter, and its income slope depends on which countries are summed. Only one of the two tests for a long-run link finds one, so the slope is a description.
- EU Cumulative GDP vs passenger growth (2002–2019) Across the pre-COVID window, passengers grew roughly tenfold in Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Poland and Lithuania, the highest dots on the chart. Four of the five were also among the fastest-growing economies shown.
- IN Indian domestic air travel grew 178% from 2010 to 2019 while GDP grew 79% Indian domestic passengers against economic output, one dot per quarter. The dots climb together before the pandemic and fall far below in it; whether they share a lasting link is unresolved, so nothing is fitted.
- KR Passengers through Korean airports grew 144% from 2005 to 2019 while GDP grew 63% Quarter by quarter, passengers at Korean airports plotted against economic output. The dots climb together until the pandemic and drop far below in it; nothing is fitted, and a domestic trip is counted at both ends.
- MX Mexican air travel grew 160% from 2000 to 2019 while GDP grew 36% Before the pandemic Mexican air travel grew far faster than the economy. No income figure is published for Mexico because its estimate does not survive the checks applied to it.
- SG Singaporean air travel grew about 10-fold since 1980 while GDP grew 13-fold More than four decades of Singapore data show income and air travel climbing together over a very wide range.
- UK UK air travel grew 94% from 1998 to 2019 while GDP grew 48% Each dot plots one quarter's UK passengers against economic output. The dots rise together in a broad band before the pandemic and drop far below it in the pandemic quarters; nothing is fitted.
- US Vehicles absorb about 5% of household income year after year; flying never tops 0.7% After vehicle purchases, gasoline is the next largest share of income and airline fares the third. Small as it is, the airfare share is several times that of mass transit and intercity trains combined.
- US Intervals promising 90% coverage delivered as little as 17% across the COVID break Standard forecast uncertainty bands broke down across the COVID shock. An adaptive method brought coverage back toward its promise, though still short of it, for the models it covers.
- US After COVID, the three foundation models forecast with a lower error than the five traditional models scored In the COVID quarters every model's error is several times its error afterwards, and two of the three foundation models go from lowest on the chart to highest. Foundation models say nothing about why demand moves.
- US After COVID, among the models scored on this chart, the seasonal model (SARIMAX) predicts best and the error-correction model (ECM) worst Before the pandemic the leading models were close together. Afterwards the seasonal model predicts best and the error-correction model worst of those scored here; each sees the quarter's actual economic data.
- US Nevada and Hawaii fly far more than their GDP predicts; Delaware flies least Some states fly far more than their GDP alone would give: Nevada, Hawaii and Florida top the list, and Delaware sits at the bottom.
- US Household airline spending The average household's airline spending has roughly doubled in dollars since the early twenty-tens, with a deep pandemic dip on the way. As a share of income it has risen much less.
- US Household transport spending by mode Vehicle purchases take the overwhelming share of household spending on the modes shown, and air travel around a tenth. Fuel and other running costs are left out, so air's share of all transport spending is smaller.
- US Real GDP and potential GDP US output has more than doubled in real terms over three and a half decades and now runs slightly above its estimated potential.
- US Real disposable income vs air travel intensity As real income per person rose over three and a half decades, flights per person rose by about two-thirds, and the two moved together over the long run.
- US State GDP per capita vs passengers per capita Each dot is a state, placed by income per person and flights per person. Some states fly many times more than similarly rich peers.
- US Log passengers vs log GDP Each dot is one quarter across three and a half decades. As the US economy grows, air travel grows with it, tightly and persistently.
- US GDP helps predict US air travel at 2 of 8 lags tested, while air travel helps predict GDP at no lag In the United States, past income helps predict air travel at some lags and past air travel never helps predict income; a stricter version of the test agrees. Both are tests of prediction only.
Freight
- AU Australia: domestic vs international air freight Australia's international air freight has grown nearly fivefold since the mid-eighties. Domestic freight has fallen by more than two-fifths since the start of the twenty-tens.
- BR Brazil: air freight (indexed) Brazilian air freight has more than doubled since the turn of the century, ending close to its all-time peak.
- CA Canada: air freight tonne-kilometres (Level I, indexed) Canadian air freight climbed to a peak in the late nineties, fell for a decade and had only partly recovered when the record stops, in the mid twenty-tens.
- CN China: air cargo volume by market (tonnes) China's air cargo has nearly tripled, with international shipments growing much faster than domestic. The domestic line steps up partway through, when Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan routes were moved into it.
- EU Air freight volumes: selected EU markets (indexed) Polish air freight has grown roughly sevenfold over two decades, the fastest of the markets shown, while the Netherlands has grown the least. Each line starts from that country's first quarter in the data.
- IN India: domestic air freight by carrier (2025) Passenger airlines carry most of India's domestic air freight; Blue Dart is the only large all-cargo airline. The split is by airline, so it does not show how much rides in passenger holds.
- IN India: top international freight markets (2025) India's air-freight map differs from its passenger map: Germany and Hong Kong rank high for freight but are not among the top passenger markets, while the UAE leads both.
- IN India: air freight, domestic vs international India ships far more air freight internationally than domestically, though domestic cargo has been catching up; both hit records in the latest year.
- IN India: seasonal rhythm of passengers vs freight (2023–2025) Indian passengers and air freight follow different calendars: people peak in December while cargo runs strongest through the autumn.
- US Freight tons per passenger, airlines that also carry passengers (2024) Freight per passenger runs highest at China Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Korean Air and lowest at the big US airlines. Each airline's own freighters are counted, so this does not measure what passenger holds carry.
- US US air freight: ton-mile share of all-cargo airlines vs airlines that also carry passengers All-cargo airlines fly about two-fifths of US air freight ton-miles, a share that peaked in the first pandemic year. The split is by airline, not aircraft: a passenger airline's own freighters count on the other side.
- US The economy used less air freight per dollar of GDP in 2024 than in 2003 or at its 2021 peak Since reporting coverage settled, freight on all-cargo flights per dollar of output has fallen below its level of two decades ago and well below its pandemic peak. Freight in passenger holds is not counted here.
- US Mail fell to 0.2% of air cargo by 1999; its jump to 5.5% is the postal contract moving to UPS, which reports it as mail Air mail never carried much cargo tonnage. Its share shrank to about a quarter of one percent by the late nineties and sat a little above one percent through the twenty-tens, before the jump at the end.
- US Freight seasonality by decade The fourth quarter is the freight peak and the first quarter the trough in every decade shown. The series counts freight and mail on all-cargo flights only.
- US US air freight ton-miles Since coverage widened in the early two-thousands, US freight on all-cargo flights has grown by nearly half, peaking in the pandemic and easing since; the steeper earlier climb is partly carriers entering the data.
- US Top 20 freight carriers (2024) FedEx and UPS together haul about as much freight tonnage as the next eighteen carriers combined.
- US Air freight swings far harder than the economy it rides on Growth in freight on all-cargo flights swings about five times wider than the economy's. This compares how much each moves; it is not an estimate of how freight responds to the economy.
- US International passengers vs freight indexed Over the past decade and a half, international passenger traffic has grown substantially faster than international freight tonnage.
Projections
- AU Traffic projection to 2044: Australia What income and population growth alone deliver for Australian air travel over the coming two decades. New routes and cheaper fares are left out, and on the curve fitted to all years the model ran below pre-COVID growth.
- BR Traffic projection to 2044: Brazil What income and population growth alone deliver for Brazil over the coming two decades, before any supply expansion or low-cost stimulation. Re-run on the curve fitted to all years, the model ran below pre-COVID growth.
- CA Traffic projection to 2044: Canada Canadian air travel over the coming two decades, projected from income and population growth alone. Re-run from earlier years on the curve fitted to all years, the model ran below pre-COVID growth.
- CN China's income-only baseline reaches 904 million passengers a year by 2044 China's air travel over the coming two decades, projected from income and population alone and counted on Chinese airlines only. Re-run on the curve fitted to all years, the model ran below China's pre-COVID growth.
- Cross-Market In the 3 markets that can be compared, the projection implies flying responds less to income than the estimate from each market's past, and elasticity runs 0.5 to 1.7 lower The income sensitivity the projection implies sits below the historical estimate in each market that can be compared. Most of that gap is already there in the first year, before income rises any further.
- Projections The US stays the biggest single air-travel market through 2044; India grows fastest Of the ten markets covered, India's projected passengers more than double over the coming two decades, far more than any other's. The United States stays the largest, though each market counts passengers its own way.
- Projections The income model and the hub trend put 10-market traffic near 4.1 billion by 2044 The ten markets combined over the coming two decades, as the sum of the income model's projections and Singapore's time trend. Supply-side and network growth are left out, so this is not a full forecast.
- IN Traffic projection to 2044: India What income and population growth alone deliver for India, the fastest-growing market here, over the coming two decades. Its fitted series is too short to re-run the model from earlier years.
- JP Traffic projection to 2044: Japan Income growth alone adds very little traffic in Japan over the coming two decades, the least of any market on the income model. Supply-side growth is not modelled.
- MX Traffic projection to 2044: Mexico Mexico over the coming two decades, projected from income and population growth alone. Supply-side expansion is left out, so read it as an income-only central path.
- UK Traffic projection to 2044: United Kingdom UK air travel over the coming two decades, projected from income and population growth alone. Its fitted series is too short to re-run the model from earlier years.
- US US flying grows slowly on income alone: about 1.34 billion passengers by 2044 This central projection counts only income and population growth and leaves out new routes, cheaper fares and airline expansion.