Cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages were not enough to offset the impact of the ongoing recession that resulted in the number of passengers flying on U.S. airlines, both domestic and overseas, declining by over 5 percent. The only good news for the airlines was that their planes flew fuller than ever, mostly because of the airlines decision to reduce flights and the move towards using smaller planes.
U.S. planes had an average fill rate of over 80 percent in 2009. To take into account less demand for air travel, U.S. carriers reduced its domestic and international flights by 6.6 percent when compared to 08.
San Francisco International was the only major hub U.S. airport to show any increase, with its passenger count up 200,000, a less than 1.3 percent increase.
Airports showing the largest declines in passenger traffic were Cincinnati (down over 39 percent), Oakland International (down over 17 percent) and San Jose International (down over 14 percent).
The only major international gateway airport that ran a double digit drop (down slightly more than 10 percent) was Detroit Metro. Las Vegas was another hard hit airport, with passenger traffic off almost 8 percent.
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