FAQ - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
RASM/PROFIT REPORT
2) WHICH AIRLINES ARE INCLUDED?
7) HOW ARE REGIONAL AIRLINES TREATED?
2) WHICH AIRLINES ARE INCLUDED?
The graph is split into two slides to increase legibility. The included Legacy Airlines are AA, DL, UA, AS, HA. LCC Airlines basically are defined as airlines created since 1970. They include B6, F9, G4, NK, WN. Generally, there is not enough data available to create this analysis for other airlines.
3) HOW IS IT CALCULATED?
Effective with posts starting in March 2024, the calculation of this report changed. See here for more details. Prior to the change, this is how the report was calculated: For each Station the bi-directional revenue and passenger miles (Revenue Passenger Miles or RPMs) for passengers ending or beginning their travel at each airport (Origin and Destination or O&D Traffic) is calculated. It does not consider passengers connecting through the Station in terms of revenue performance. O&D Revenue is divided by Stage Adjusted O&D RPMs to create Stage Adjusted O&D Yield. The Station Load Factor is calculated from T100 data including both regionals and mainline. O&D Yield is divided by Station Load Factor to create "Stage Adjusted O&D RASM". RASM is Revenue Per Available Seat Mile. RASM is not traditionally calculated this way, but is mathematically valid. For each airline, Stage Adjusted O&D RASM is ranked from Best to Worst for each time period. The airline's best RASM is ranked 100 with 0 to its worst market RASM.
4) IS IT PROFITABILITY?
It is what I would call a profitability proxy because it considers average fare, load factor, adjusts revenue for route distance, and considers cost in terms of the number of seats needed to generate the revenue. Therefore it is a reasonable proxy for profitability. It does not capture that some seats cost more than others to "produce". A seat on an RJ has additional fuel burn versus a 737, this is not considered. A gate at LGA costs more than a gate at LIT. This is not considered. For posts prior to March 2024 passengers connecting through the station are not considered in the revenue quality calculation (except for load factor), hub results only reflect the local market, and since airlines tend to do very well at hubs with local passengers these markets should be high performers under this methodology. It should also be noted, that it is all relative. If an airline is in a period of high overall profitability across the entire network, an airport near the bottom of their performance chart may still be profitable. In really good times 90% or more of stations may be profitable. Conversely, a route above 50% rank may still be unprofitable in poor times when the company overall is losing money. The point is more the rank of an airport compared to other airports in the airline's network, and less the actual determination of whether it is profitable or unprofitable.
5) WHAT IS 4 QUARTER ROLLING?
Visually, seasonality makes these charts very hard to read because markets frequently have stronger results in certain quarters. To prevent that, each data point represents the combination of the previous 4 quarters (12 months) in order to minimize seasonal impact on the graph. This also allows for inclusion of seasonal stations which would otherwise appear as only a single dot if they operated a single quarter each year.
6) HOW ARE MERGERS TREATED?
All previous merger/acquisitions are combined, otherwise it would be too hard to read. For example, J7 (Air Tran) becomes WN (Southwest) through subsequent mergers. Most mergers were determined using this page from the airline trade group. In cases where an LCC merged into what is now a legacy (e.g. America West is now American) the performance of the LCC routes will likely be low relative to the revenue performance of the rest of the airline. This is accurate, but wasn't important at that point in history.
7) HOW ARE REGIONAL AIRLINES TREATED?
The intent is that all regionals are assigned to the ticketing airline. E.G. OO to AA or DL or UA depending on the route. If a flight operated on a regional and the ticket was not reported it would not be included. For example, if a passenger flew PHX-Prescott,AZ on a small regional airline operating as America West Express the ticket would be included if it connected to America West because America West would report it. If the passenger flew only locally and the regional airline was too small to report data on their own per the DOT standard for that year, the passenger's revenue would not be included. If a regional operated at the Station for the Ticketing carrier, all that regional carrier's traffic was considered in the load factor calculation for that airline. Load factor reporting does not report marketing carrier by route, only operating carrier.
8) CAN THIS BE DONE BY ROUTE?
Using this methodology, it cannot. DOT does not make easily available passenger routing information which would be necessary to do this by route. That data is only available to a few large aviation data processors.
9) IS INTERNATIONAL DATA INCLUDED?
No. The DOT imposes an additional 90 day data lag on international data. Additionally, the DOT imposes citizenship restrictions on the use of this data that makes it impractical for this site.
10) WHY DID THE DATA CHANGE IN MARCH 2024?
In March 2024 this report was transitioned to the same database used for the ROUTE RASM REPORT. Ths report was originally created before the ROUTE RASM report and is not based on route level results, but rather airport level results. In order to sync the two reports, it is more accurate and consistent to sum up the route level results in order to create airport level results. The prior version did not consider the RASM of passengers connecting through that airport, so if the airport was a hub or significant connect point, the report was primarily reflecting the profitability of the local market. While that only affects hubs and larger airports, since this is a ranking report, changes in ranking of those airports does impact other airports positioning. International routes are still not included, and connecting traffic from international routes is assumed to be carried at the average yield of other domestic connecting passengers onboard the same routes. Further details about the calculation can be found at the ROUTE RASM REPORT FAQ.