Airlines fill planes to record capacity as demand grows

Next time you board a commercial flight, don’t expect to find an empty seat next to you.

The nation’s airlines filled an average of 83.1 percent of the seats on flights in 2013, a record, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The high rate, known as the load factor, indicates that the number of seats made available by U.S. airlines is not keeping up with increased demand for air travel. The nation’s airlines carried 743 million passengers in 2013, the highest annual total since 2008, according to the federal agency. By comparison, U.S. carriers flew 737 million passengers in 2012.

Meanwhile, the number of flights dropped to slightly less than 9.2 million last year from about 9.3 million in 2012, the agency reported Thursday. The biggest increase came from international travel on U.S. carriers, which grew by 3.3 percent while domestic travel rose by only 0.5 percent, according to bureau data.

Los Angeles Times