Monthly civil aviation statistics, October 2019
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Released: 2019-12-20
The six Canadian Level I air carriers flew 6.6 million passengers on scheduled and charter services in October, down 0.1% from October 2018. This marks the fourth consecutive year-over-year monthly decline. There was a 0.5% decrease in September 2019.
Traffic edged up 0.3% year over year to 17.3 billion passenger-kilometres in October. Capacity rose 0.7% to 21.3 billion available seat-kilometres, the first increase after four straight declines. The reduction in capacity over the past months, which coincided with the busy summer travel season, was due largely to the continued grounding of all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. This resulted in a slightly lower passenger load factor in October (81.0%) compared with the same month a year earlier (81.4%), as capacity growth outpaced traffic growth.
On average, each passenger travelled 2,615 kilometres, up 0.3% compared with October 2018.
The volume of turbo fuel consumed increased 1.5% to 639.3 million litres. The number of flying hours fell 1.1% to 178,000 hours. October marked the sixth consecutive monthly decline in hours flown. These decreases were due largely to the MAX's grounding.
Operating revenue for these airlines totalled $1.8 billion in October, down 2.2% from the same month a year earlier, and reversing the upward year-over-year monthly trend that began in June 2016.
Chart 1
Passengers carried, Canadian air carriers, Level I
Chart 2
Passenger load factor, Canadian air carriers, Level I
Chart 3
Turbo fuel consumed, Canadian air carriers, Level I
Note to readers
The Monthly Civil Aviation Survey covers all Canadian Level I air carriers: Air Canada (including Air Canada Rouge), Air Transat, Jazz, Porter, Sunwing and WestJet (including Swoop, WestJet Encore and WestJet Link).
The average passenger trip length is obtained by dividing the number of passenger-kilometres by the number of passengers. Trips across Canada and across the globe are included in this calculation.
Data in this monthly release are not seasonally adjusted.
Data for October 2018 have been revised.
Contact information
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