MIT Airline Data Project

The Airline Data Project (ADP) was established by the MIT Global Airline Industry Program to better understand the opportunities, risks and challenges facing this vital industry. The ADP is designed to support the goals of the MIT Airline Industry Consortium. It is a unique repository of data and analysis that will allow individuals – from academia to the financial community to the news media – to monitor the evolution of the U.S. commercial airline industry.

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    • Expenses of U.S. Airline Industry
      March 2021
      Source: MIT Airline Data Project
      Uploaded by: Knoema
      Accessed On: 30 March, 2021
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      The ADP expense section, like the revenue section, examines the system performance of each airline. Since 2000, the components which comprise the total operating expense for each airline have undergone significant change. There has been increased focus on labor costs, fuel, maintenance and the outsourcing of some services and departments. The ADP provides unit costs with each of these expenses either included or excluded. Furthermore, each relevant metric has been stage-length adjusted with the formula displayed. The data-set concludes with a look at labor versus non-labor costs per available seat mile. The relationship between these two measures is a key factor in any assessment of the cost-competitiveness of individual airlines. In addition, we have calculated labor costs, excluding executive salaries, to provide insight on this key component of airline costs. While this measure is not perfect, it does help to put some context around this much publicized issue. All of the major items that go into calculating total operating expense are aligned, as reported to the DOT and the SEC. We encourage users to relate changes in expenses to changes in revenue.