Annual Passenger Yields: U.S. Airlines

The data below reflects the activity of U.S. passenger airlines as defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation under Chapter 411 of Title 49 of the U.S. Code.

The table below depicts domestic yields since 1926 and international yields since 1937, as well as each year's U.S. consumer price index (CPI). (Yields are computed directly from passenger revenue and mileage data provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation.) Inclusion of the annual CPI facilitates comparisons of historical growth in airline prices versus the average basket of U.S. goods. The rightmost column reformulates annual system yields in constant 1978 cents. The table thus portrays airfares in both nominal (not adjusted for U.S. inflation) and real (adjusted for U.S. inflation) terms, using 1978--the year of passenger airline deregulation--as a benchmark.

NOTES: Yield is an industry term denoting the price (in cents) a passenger pays to fly one mile. Yield does not include taxes, which are remitted directly to the taxing authority and never recorded in carrier financial statements.

*Congress enacted legislation deregulating domestic airline passenger service in October 1978.