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
