January 2005 Airline Employment Down 0.8 Percent from January 2004

US scheduled passenger airlines employed a total of 456,841 workers in January 2005, 0.8 percent fewer than in January 2004, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported Monday.

BTS, a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, reported that the seven network carriers employed 310,791 total workers, 4.1 percent fewer workers in January 2005 than a year earlier (Table 2).  The low-cost carriers reported 75,110 total employees, 0.7 percent more than January 2004 (Table 3); and the regional carriers reported 59,369 total employees, 16.8 percent more than the previous year.

Airline employment numbers have been reported by carriers meeting the reporting standard since at least 1970.  This new monthly series of press releases, including carrier groupings, is designed to reflect the existing structure of the airline industry and to provide numbers to measure the growing prominence of low-cost and regional air carriers.  Many regional carriers were not required to report employment numbers before 2003, so year-to-year comparisons involving regional carriers as a group, or the full industry, are not appropriate for earlier years.  BTS is providing pre-2003 comparisons for network and low-cost carriers, as well as pre-2003 numbers for individual regional carriers that were required to report in earlier years.

Airlines that operate at least one aircraft with the capacity to carry combined passengers, cargo and fuel of 18,000 pounds – the payload factor – must report monthly employment statistics. 

The 2004 statistics do not include employment data for one regional airline that was not required to report for that year –- PSA Airlines.  

Numbers for Independence Air, which changed its business model from a regional to low-cost carrier in mid-2004, have been included with low-cost carriers for both 2005 and 2004.  This change reflects that carrier's current business model as a low-cost operator.

Using Full-Time Equivalent Employee (FTE) calculations, in which part-time workers are counted as one-half of a full-time employee, employment at network carriers in January dropped 31.9 percent from 2001 to 2005.  The biggest declines were at US Airways, down 45.2 percent; and United Airlines, down 40.9 percent.

The seven low-cost carriers that were required to report employment data in 2001 and 2005 employed 16.3 percent more FTEs in 2005 than in 2001.

Of the eight regional carriers who reported employment numbers to BTS in 2001, the January FTEs increased 17.2 percent.  Of that group, only Horizon Air reported fewer FTE employees in January 2005 than January 2001.

Network carriers operate a significant portion of their flights using at least one hub where connections are made for flights to down line destinations or spoke cities. Low-cost carriers are those that the industry generally recognizes as operating under a low-cost business model with fewer infrastructure costs. 

Regional carriers provide service from small cities, using primarily regional jets to support the network carriers' hub and spoke systems.

The Other Carrier category generally reflects those airlines that operate within specific niche markets such as Aloha and Hawaiian Airlines in serving the Hawaiian Islands.

Data are compiled from monthly reports filed with BTS by commercial air carriers as of March 16. 

FMI: www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/number_of_employees