December 2022 U.S. Airline Traffic Data

December 2022 Airline Traffic Infographic

U.S. airlines carried 74.9 million systemwide (domestic and international) scheduled service passengers in December 2022, seasonally adjusted, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' (BTS), down 1.4% from November.

BTS reported 65.5 million domestic passengers and 9.4 million international passengers on U.S. airlines flights in December.

U.S. airline traffic reports are filed monthly with BTS. See the tables that accompany this release on the BTS website for summary data since 2016 (Tables 1-24) and complete data since 2000.

Two measures of U.S. airlines passenger enplanements:

December seasonally adjusted

System-wide enplanements (74.9M) were down 7.2% from the all-time high of 80.7 million reached in January 2020.
Domestic enplanements (65.5M) were down 7.7% from the all-time high of 71.0 million reached in January 2020.
International enplanements (9.41M) were down 3.8% from the all-time high of 9.78 million reached in October 2019.

December unadjusted

Systemwide enplanements (71.7M) were down 9.6% from the all-time December high (79.3) reached in 2019.
Domestic enplanements (62.3M) were down 10.6% from the all-time December high (69.7) reached in 2019.
International enplanements (9.37M) were down 2.2% from the all-time December high (9.58) reached in 2019.

Line Chart showing monthly passengers on U.S. Scheduled Airlines for December 2019 through December 2022

Table A. Seasonally Adjusted Passenger Enplanements Compared to Previous Time Periods

Seasonally Adjusted	Passengers (in millions)	Percent Change Compared to:
Seasonally Adjusted	Passengers (in millions)	Previous Month	Previous Year	Three Years Previous
December	74.9	-1.4%	9.0%	-5.7%

Table B. Unadjusted Passenger Enplanements Compared to Previous Time Periods

Unadjusted	Passengers (in millions)	Percent Change Compared to:
Unadjusted	Passengers (in millions)	Previous Year	Two Years Previous	Three Years Previous
December	71.7	7.6%	134.8%	-9.6%

For data filed through December, see accompanying tables. For the complete database of reported data, see Traffic. For an explanation of BTS' seasonal adjustment methodology, see Seasonal Adjustment.

Reporting Notes

Data are compiled from monthly reports filed with BTS by commercial U.S. air carriers detailing operations, passenger traffic and freight traffic. This release includes data received by BTS from 77 U.S. carriers as of March 3 for U.S. carrier scheduled civilian operations.

See the BTS Airlines and Airports page for additional scheduled service numbers through December for U.S. airlines. International data by origin and destination is available through September. International totals in this press release consist of all U.S. carrier operations to and from the U.S. and from one foreign point to another foreign point. BTS' Airlines and Airports page does not include U.S. carriers' foreign point-to-point flights.

BTS has scheduled April 13^th for the release of data through January.

None of the data are from samples. Measures of statistical significance do not apply to the complete air traffic data.

Missing carriers: 2HQ (Elite) has not reported since July. ExpressJet (EV) is in Chapter 11 and discontinued operations on August 22; there are no operations to report for September and beyond.