I've noticed a similar phenomenon with the ATL airport on Monday mornings. Since school started back in the ATL aread (Aug 11) the usual Monday morning x-ray lines are gone. This week, I walked through the Elite security line check point and into one of the actual x-ray lines as the 2nd person in line. All of the x-ray lines had lines with no more than 4 people in them. For a Monday morning, this was really low. I guess not many people are flying this fall or may be people are scared to fly this week because tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Personally, I think the load factors are way down for this fall. I'm not in the industry, so I have no way to prove it, but simply my gut feel.

My flight to Mexico City had empty seats in FC and only a few of the middle seats in coach were occupied. Basically, a rare occurrence for this flight.