A bit ago I was asked if I had an idea how much of AirTran's September year-over-year traffic fall was due to the Skywest markets ending. With more detailed numbers from the DoT available, I can shed some light on that.
Here's some info comparing 2010 to 2011 for FL/FL* at Milwaukee 2010 versus 2011.
Some AirTran markets saw notable increase in frequency. Those markets combined for about 10, 200 more passengers in September 2011 over September 2011. Both MCO and DCA had one more daily flight this year versus last, while the rest of these markets had fewer day-of-week cancelations in 2011 versus last year.
In most cases, the increased capacity meant lower -- in some cases much lower -- load factor.
2010 LF.. 2011 LF .. chg in pts .. chg in pax ..
86.6% ….. 71.4% ….. -15.2% ……. 2624 ……. MCO ……. 30 more round trips
88.7% ….. 87.3% ……. -1.4% ……. 2136 ……. LAS ……. 10 more round trips
69.6% ….. 68.8% ……. -0.8% ……. 1505 ……. RSW ……. 11 more round trips
72.4% ….. 63.1% ……. -9.3% ……. 1122 ……. DCA ……. 28 more round trips
94.1% ….. 96.5% ……… 2.4% ……. 1956 ……. SEA ……. 8 more round trips
83.5% ….. 68.4% ….. -15.1% …….. 244 ……. TPA ……. 8 more round trips
90.5% ….. 84.9% ……. -5.6% …….. 683 ……. LAX ……. 8 more round trips
Then there was one new market in 2011 and two markets dropped from the prior year. Those combined for a net loss of about 10,700, more tha offsetting the gains in traffic where frequencies were increased (above).
+0422.....SRQ
-8296.....DFW
-2832.....SAN
The rest of the AirTran markets which did not see a notable difference in frequency for 2011 versus 2010 combined for a net decreased in about 6,800 passengers year over year. And given that frequency was essentially unchanged, fewer pax meant lower loads in most (but not all) markets, too:
2010 LF.. 2011 LF .. chg in pts .. chg in pax ..
63.8% ….. 83.7% ……. 19.9% ……. 1042 ……. FLL
93.9% ….. 96.9% ……… 3.0% …….. 290 ……. SFO
69.9% ….. 71.8% ……… 1.9% …….. -88 ……. ATL
79.7% ….. 76.6% ……. -3.1% ……. -320 ……. MSP
64.9% ….. 51.1% ….. -13.8% ….. -1420 ……. BWI
76.9% ….. 73.1% ……. -3.8% ….. -1918 ……. LGA
70.3% ….. 62.4% ……. -7.9% ….. -2074 ……. BOS
74.2% ….. 59.7% ….. -14.5% ….. -2339 ……. DEN
Last but not least are those Skywest markets. They combined for about 18,500 fewer passengers this year versus last:
-4817 ….. IND
-5011 ….. OMA
-4849 ….. PIT
-5410 ….. STL
+1402 ….. CAK
+0095 ….. DSM
Here's some further information on the three former CRJ markets turned to 717 on FL or 737 on WN:
Akron
2010 36.0 pax per flight
2011 53.0 pax per flight
year-over-year traffic +35.4%
year-over-year seats +106.0%
Des Moines
2010 28.4 pax per flight
2011 28.0 pax per flight
year-over-year traffic +3.0%
year-over-year seats +122.9%
(note that the Des Moines pax per flight is lower than last year even though traffic is up 3% because there was 1x more round trip flight per week this year than last)
St Louis
2010 37.6 pax per fliight
2011 63.7 pax per flight
year-over-year traffic +15.8%
Obviously September is a slow month, but we shall see how much better these get. Having Frontier out of STL starting in October will help them. Having Frontier out of DSM will give a smaller boost as MKE-DSM is a much smaller market.
Anyway...time to shut off electronic devices as we come over Lake Michigan...
year-over-year seats +77.6%