Can anyone provide a ballpark figure for how many flight hours are flown per aircraft by the major USA passenger airlines? Figure should exclude the regional jets (which I understand is approx 2,200 hrs per year per aircraft).
Thanks, Carey
Five
I suspect it depends on whether the aircraft is being used as long haul or short haul.
Average is maybe plus or minus somewhere around 2500, approximately.
As mentioned, it really does depend on the routing of the aircraft.
The original Braniff’s first 747 was in the air about 13 hours a day or, allowing for a couple of weeks a year for maintenance, 4,550 hours a year.
Cargloux, the Luxembourg cargo airline, has a daily utlization of nearly 16 hours a day due to the fact that it operates a lot of long haul routes.
Best place to get the utilization would be to look at the annual reports of the airlines. They will show the daily utilization. Multiply this by 350 (365 days a year less ~2 weeks for maintenance) to get a rough idea of annual utilization. While you can find the overall utilization, it may be harder to find specific utilization by aircraft type and haul length.
There is also aircraft operating data available from the BTS. Look for the schedules beginning with P in the Air Carrier Financial Reports (Form 41 Financial Data) section. You’ll need to download the data into a spreadsheet and then manipulate the data. Be sure to download the tables that decode the aircraft type.
SWA tends to have really detailed info in their annual report and on their website. In fact, they have a special section of their www dedicated to info generally sought by students.
SWA = Southwest Airlines