Summary
- US carriers increased their traffic year-on-year this August with over 83 million passengers served, just shy of its pre-pandemic record.
- International travel surged to all-time highs, while domestic travel remains slightly below 2019 levels.
- Air traffic control shortages have posed challenges, with hundreds of flights canceled and ongoing understaffing issues persisting into the winter travel season.
US carriers served over 83 million passengers this August, an increase of 8.4% compared to the previous year. This is also just a fraction lower than the country’s all-time high for August recorded in 2019.
US summer traffic growth
With airline capacity recovering from the early shocks of the post-pandemic era, the latest US Department of Transportation (DOT) statistics reveal that US airline traffic has gone up by 8.4% year-on-year – the country’s airlines served around 83.1 million passengers, domestic and international, over August 2023, according to figures from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). 71.5 million were domestic passengers, while 11.6 million were flying international.
Photo: Bureau of Transportation Statistics
As the graph above shows, air traffic has been steadily rising in the past two years and is a far cry from the lows of 2020, when August passenger numbers were less than one-third of this year. When figures are adjusted for seasonality, August traffic is up 1.7% from the previous month but 4.2% short of the all-time high recorded in January 2020. Seasonally adjusted data takes into account the number of days per month, number of weekends, and other factors like holidays, to come up with figures more indicative of real trends in the industry.
The growth has been driven by the country’s three biggest airlines – American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines – all of which have upped their capacity this year.
New international records
The figures show that international enplanements were at an all-time high at 11.6 million, higher than pre-pandemic times, although domestic enplanements (71.5 million) were 1.7% lower than its August 2019 record of 72.7 million.
Photo: Vincenzo Pace I Simple Flying
As the industry continues its hiring spree to make up for post-pandemic staff shortages, this rise in international traffic is set to continue into next year. As Simple Flying explored recently, the US-Europe market will see its most-ever daily flights at over 600 next summer, while the US and China have agreed to double flights between the two nations.
ATC shortages update
August’s figures would have been even higher were it not for the widespread air traffic control (ATC) shortages in the industry, not just in the US but internationally too – many issues centered around the US East Coast, forcing airlines to scrap hundreds of flights during a critical travel period.
Photo: Orlando International Airport
These problems have unfortunately not subsided as we enter the winter travel season, with an estimated 77% of US ATC towers suffering from understaffing as of October. In August, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) successfully hired around 1,500 new ATC staff, but this was still well short of industry needs.
Did you travel anywhere in or out of the US in August? How was your overall experience flying during such a busy month? Let us know your stories in the comments.