Originally Posted by
cubfan99
Something is a bit fishy with those numbers. If the average profit per passenger is $5.42, and the profit margin is 2.4%, that would mean the average revenue per passenger is around $220. Even if that is before taxes, that seems like accounting voodoo. I can't imagine ANY route where the fare plus fees is as low as $220 these days, much less having all the routes average that.
I also suspect that these numbers are for each way (if not each segment), for the sake of normalization. But even if not, remember that they are talking across the worldwide industry as a whole. Here in Europe, leisure flights are rarely more than $250 (my leisure flights average less than half that), including a very high proportion of taxes and fees. I'm sure other regions such as intra-China help to deflate the numbers as well.