2024 08 29 12 45 32
The DB1B, the famous 10% ticket sample, offers insight into how the US airline market evolves. Using the market summary dataset, we offer four charts, each focusing on one industry segment.
Some items:
- The ball size reflects traffic volume.
- The Y-axis is the average market fare.
- The X-axis is the average stage length.
- Each chart shows the airline movement on these two axes from 2015 through 2Q24.
LCCs.
- Breeze has started to stretch its stage length, seeking new markets that others have ignored or avoided.
- Southwest’s average stage has not changed much; interestingly, neither has its average market fare.
- Jetblue has seen a rise in average market fares and a slow growth in average stage lengths.
ULCCs
- This segment has wide swings in average market fares, especially for Spirit and Frontier.
- Allegiant operates in an odd space where nobody else seems to focus.
- Spirit and Frontier compete vigorously with the former, which is more adventurous regarding stage lengths.
Network
- Another segment has some big average fare variance.
- The consistency in behavior for American, Delta and United tells its own story. The variance in average stage lengths is interesting. United consistently flies longer legs.
- Alaska, given its home base, flies long legs too.
- Hawaiian, also because of its location, has relatively long stages.
Finally, looking at the top 20 destinations, the average market fares and stage lengths serve these markets.
