DOT Reports Record Number of Passengers in 2016

The Department of Transportation (DOT) announced Thursday that American carriers served a record 823 million passengers in total for 2016. The number marks a 3.1 percent increase from 2015, in which 798 million passengers flew, and appears to be representative of a bounce back for the aviation industry after recession-related slumps.

“We not only set a new all-time high beating last year, but eclipsed it by a healthy margin,” said John Heimlich, Airlines for America’s chief economist.

“We’ve had two consecutive years of fairly significant airfare declines, and a couple of consecutive years of record capital expenditures putting money back into the product.”

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