Saturday, January 10, 2009

How Many Seats?

That's the big question as we slog through an off-peak travel season. How many fewer airline seats are there, and how many fewer are there going to be once travel demand picks up (as it should) in the spring?

In an example of how to do it right online, USA Today has an excellent interactive chart showing OAG figures for the number of scheduled seats on airline domestic departures from all over the country, state by state and city by city. Here's the link.

Some key points (seats on departing flights scheduled as of March 2009 compared with March 2008):

Honolulu -- Down 17.7 percent

Las Vegas -- Down 12.2

Orlando -- Down 8.5

Reno -- Down 26.6

LAX -- Down 7.9

Chicago O'Hare -- Down 8.5

Tucson -- Down 26.6

Cincinnati -- Down 27.7

Those are flights already in the schedule. From everything I'm hearing, airlines are considering cutting capacity even further, so these numbers are by no means firm.

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