Todays airline industry presents a different picture than it did prior to the events of September 11, 2001 (9/11), with more passengers flying low-cost carriers, fewer empty seats, and a smaller workforce. Airline passenger travel and capacity (measured in terms of available seats) fell drastically after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, when our national air space was temporarily closed. The numbers of airline passenger and seats remained low in subsequent months, but have recovered in the following years. Available seats have increased more slowly than air passenger travel, and have only recently reached the pre-9/11 peaks; in contrast, air passenger travel reached its pre-9/11 peak in July 2004 and has continued to grow. Thus the aviation industry has accommodated passenger growth with few additional seats, which means fuller planes. At the same time that the industry was facing this large-scale drop and subsequent recovery in the number of passengers, there were shifts in the size of different segments of the industry. In particular, the low-cost carriers grew significantly and air fares decreased through this period. Network carriers responded to the pressures on the domestic market by reducing available seats and shifting some capacity to the international market. They also dramatically cut employment in order to reduce costs.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics Issue Brief: Airline Travel Since 9/11. Number 13
2005
2 pages
Report
No indication
English