January Air Travel 109.6% of 2019

The airlines carried nearly 10 percent more travelers in January 2024 than in the same month of 2019, according to checkpoint counts made by the Transportation Security Administration. Meanwhile, Amtrak carried 98.2 percent as many passenger-miles in January as in 2019, according to its monthly performance report released early this week.

Transit and highway data for January 2024 should be available soon.

Don’t let the closeness of the airline and Amtrak lines fool you. Airline passenger-miles are not yet available for December and January, but in the 12 months ending in November 2023, the airlines carried 128 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak. And that’s just counting domestic air travel; when international travel is counted, airlines carried 232 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak. Continue reading

November Driving 1.2% More Than in 2019

Americans drove 1.2 percent more miles in November of 2023 than in the same month in 2019, according to data released by the Federal Highway Administration yesterday. Rural driving was 6 percent greater than in 2019, while urban driving was 0.9 percent less. This may partially be due to a movement of people from urban to rural areas.

For a discussion of airline, Amtrak, and transit numbers, see the post from earlier this week.

A few states are still seeing major shortfalls in driving. West Virginia is 31 percent below 2019; California is down 21 percent; and the District of Columbia remains 29 percent less than in 2019. Missouri and Washington are also below 2019 levels, but only by 5 to 6 percent. Continue reading

Transit Carried 74.9% of 2019 Riders in November

America’s transit systems carried nearly 75 percent as many riders in November 2023 as the same month in 2019, according to data released on Friday by the Federal Transit Administration. This is the most riders transit has attracted, as a share of pre-pandemic levels, since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Transit’s failure to carry even three-fourths of its pre-pandemic passengers stands in contrast to Amtrak, which carried 3.1 percent more passenger-miles in November 2023 than 2019, and the airlines, which carried 4.3 percent more riders in November than in 2019. Release of airline passenger-mile data tends to be more than a month later than passenger numbers, but in September domestic air routes carried 6.0 percent more passenger-miles than the same month in 2019. November highway data are not yet available but an update will be posted here when they are. Continue reading

October Transit Ridership Levels Off

Transit carried 73.90 percent as many riders in October 2023 as in the same month in 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. This is just a couple of hairs less than the 73.92 percent carried in September. Rail ridership was 71.0 percent of 2019 while bus ridership was 76.6 percent. Actual October ridership was more than September’s, which is the case for most years.

As with last month, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston transit systems are much better than average, carrying 78 to 85 percent of 2019 levels. Washington seems to have caught up with the average, carrying 73.7 percent. Atlanta, Boston, Phoenix, and San Francisco are all doing worse than average, carrying less than 70 percent and, in Phoenix’s case, less than 56 percent of 2019 numbers. Continue reading

July 2023 Transit Ridership 65% of July 2019

After reaching 70 percent of pre-pandemic numbers in June, transit ridership in July fell back to 65 percent of July 2019, according to data released last week by the Federal Transit Administration. Since July 2019 had 22 working days while July 2023 only had 20, this decline is not surprising.

Meanwhile, Americans drove 97.2 percent as many miles in July 2023 as in the same month of 2019, according to Federal Highway Administration data released last week as well. Amtrak’s monthly performance report indicates that the railroad carried 91.2 percent as many passenger-miles in July 2023 as July 2019, while the Transportation Security Administration says that 98.8 percent as many travelers passed through security in July as in 2019. Continue reading

June Transit Carried 71% of Pre-COVID Riders

America’s transit agencies carried 71.4 percent as many riders in June 2023 as they did in the same month of 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. This is the highest percentage of 2019 ridership since February, 2020. One reason for the gain above previous months is that June had two more business days in 2023 than it did in 2019.

Data are not yet available for highway or Amtrak travel. However, boarding numbers from the Transportation Security Administration indicate that the airlines carried 100.8 percent as many riders in June of 2023 as June of 2019. I’ll post updates for driving and Amtrak when those data are released. Continue reading

Transit Continues to Lag Behind Driving

Americans drove more miles in May 2023 than the same month of 2019, according to data released by the Federal Highway Administration earlier this week. Transit ridership, however, was still less than 70 percent of 2019 levels, according to the Federal Transit Administration’s latest data.

At 69.9 percent of pre-pandemic levels, transit ridership was very close to 70 percent, a threshold it has breached only once since March 2020. To be fair, Cleveland’s regional transit agency is late in reporting ridership numbers. Though the agency carries only 0.3 percent of the nation’s transit riders, when its numbers are added, the national total for May will slightly exceed 70 percent of 2019. Continue reading

Airline Data Suggests International Travel Changes

Americans flew 96.2 percent as many domestic passenger-miles in January 2023 than the same money in 2019, according to data released by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) yesterday. These data come more than a month after other transportation-related data, so I usually rely instead on Transportation Security Administration passenger counts to see how well air travel is recovering since the pandemic. However, unlike TSA counts, the passenger-miles reported by the BTS sort domestic from international travel.

International air travel in January was only 78 percent of pre-pandemic levels, according to the BTS data. This conflicts with TSA counts, which were 103 percent of January 2019, which is impossible if domestic was 96 percent and international 78 percent. The BTS numbers are generally revised upwards slightly, but this is a large discrepancy. I suspect the BTS numbers, which are based on data reported to them by the airlines, are more reliable than passenger counts. Continue reading

September Air Travel Exceeded 2019 Passenger-Miles

In September 2022, Americans flew more domestic passenger-miles than the same month in 2019, according to data released yesterday by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. This is the first time domestic air passenger-miles have exceeded 2019 levels since the pandemic began.

Although the number of passenger-miles exceeded 2019 levels, the number of trips was only 98.7 percent of September 2019. This indicates that people are substituting other means of travel for some shorter airline trips. The effect, however, is smaller than I would have expected: the average domestic airline trip was 926 miles in September 2022 vs. 911 miles in September 2019, or 1.7 percent longer. For 2022 to date, average trip lengths were only 1.4 percent longer than in the first nine months of 2019. Continue reading

Will Amtrak Benefit from Telecommuting?

Airlines carried 94 percent as many passengers in September 2022 as they did in September 2019, according to passenger counts published by the Transportation Security Administration. That’s up from 91 percent in August and 88 percent in September.

Photo by N509FZ.

According to United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, the industry is thriving due to changes in leisure travel habits following the pandemic. People who work at home at least some days a week are taking more frequent short pleasure trips for long weekends. Continue reading