Hi Folks,
I'm working on a report for the financial people where I work. They are making us calculate the average cost per mile flown this year, along with how many flights, average cost per trip, etc.

Yes, I know, this is really something that I want to be doing on a Friday afternoon!

I'm asking your help to help me benchmark my travels this year. I did some pretty lengthy searches this morning and could not find anything pertaining to this subject in the various forums. The mileage run forum did have some great information, but I'm hesitant to base my report on really low fares.

My rough findings so far for business travel this year:

$6169.00 - Total airfares paid
43,260 - Actual miles flown (various airlines)
0.14 cents per mile flown
57 segments flown
758 average miles per segment
$216.00 average cost per RT ticket

I really appreciate your help, my report is due on Monday...there goes Saturday afternoon!

Take care and thanks again!

Maybe I am missing something, but it looks like you already have it done. Maybe you are also trying to compare it so some other average? If so I would be very careful. Different markets, days of week, time of day, etc. etc. have big impacts on cost of tickets. Based on personal knowledge and having no info on your flight patterns, the pricing you have is very good. People with 21 day advance doing redeye flights would be happy to get that rate.

Are you bychance perhaps asking,

"What is the average dollar value of frequent flyer miles?"

Please see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/003114.html

Hi Nostresshere,

Thank you for the reply. Yes, I have the numbers for myself for my report, but I'm looking for some sample comparison numbers.

My travel patterns run the gamut from 21 day out Sat stays across country to buying a ticket using the cell phone on the way to the airport! There is a good mix of different fares in my calculations.

Most of the trips were U and UAL.

Again, I really appreciate your help!

Hi Doc,
First of all...
Happy belated birthday!

I'm looking for some sample numbers of what a person actually pays for their fares. I know that this is a hard question to answer, considering all the different fare structures like 21 day advance, sat stays, etc.

But I have to put some comparison numbers down in my report and who better to ask than my friends at Flyertalk!

Thanks for you help, I really do appreciate it!

If you want comparison numbers, here are mine:

78,078 - Actual miles flown (various airlines) excluding award travel
12.12 cents per mile flown
54 segments flown
1,445 average miles per segment
$676.05 average cost per RT ticket

But, as NoStressHere, pointed out, you are very likely comparing apples to oranges here.

You could compare your $/mile to the airline's yield ($/revenue mile). Each airline publishes their yield quarterly and annually, and the DOT has it also. That way, you'll know if you're paying average, above average or below average per mile.

I think most airlines except WN have yields around 10-12 cents. If you're averaging 14 cents, that's pretty close, especially on US, which has higher yields but higher costs.

Even better would be to get the airline's yield on the routes you actually fly. That would be a better comparison. However, I think that's proprietary, but you could look around the DOT's web site and see if you can find anything.


Here's something else you can do with your numbers without resorting to the DOT. 14 cents is your average. Fine. But what's the variance? If you're buying cheap roundtrips and last minutes, your variance is probably pretty high. If some of your routes are cheap and some are expensive, the variance will be even higher.

The point of variance is so that you can compare two sets of numbers in which both have the same average. Generally speaking, higher variance is bad.

To calculate variance, add up for each trip taken: (cost is per mile)

(actual cost - average cost)^2

which would be in your case:
(actual cost - 0.14)^2


Take that total and divide by the number of trips. That is the variance.

Take the square root of the variance, and you have the standard deviation. Standard deviation (s.d.) is in $/mile, just like the average. Variance itself is not terribly useful; standard deviation is a useful figure.

I'll wager that your s.d. is 10 cents.


If you want, send me the spreadsheet (price and miles for each trip). I do this kind of crap all the time; it's a cinch!

[This message has been edited by JS (edited 09-28-2001).]

For what it's worth, my figures are below, for this calendar year up until just after next weekend. Since mine is mostly long-haul international, it's comparing apples to melons, I know.

~US$2700 - Total airfares paid
58,711 actual miles flown on UA/SQ/AN/NH
4.60 US cents per mile flown
26 segments flown
2258 average miles per segment
US$104.00 average cost per segment

For what it's worth, the variance per ticket is quite low: 4.36c/mile on Aust-Japan-USA, 4.71c/mile on RTW, 4.16c/mile on one US domestic. The only high one was SFO-SEA return, at 9.44c/mile. Yep, I pay twice as much per mile to fly UA Shuttle!

Comparison to what?
Compared to people that fly to the same cities that you (your company) does? Compared to people that just walk up and buy a fare? Compared to people that fly nationwide? Compared to.... well you get it.

Obviously, in the bold part you mean 14 cents per mile or $0.14 per mile flown. That's a mistake by a factor of 100 which you should definitely not leave in the report to the financial people.

AMR [AA's parent company] reports per passenger revenue yield of 13.47 cents per mile. Keep in mind this includes both discount fares and high yield paid business/first class fares. Since we know that F/J fares constitute a disproportionate part of airline's revenues, I'd think travel in coach [I assume that's what your company pays] only yields around 10 to 11 cents per mile.

So, empiracally, you are already paying above the airline average by paying 14 cents per mile. If you primarily fly coach, you're paying even more, on average, than other coach passengers.