I don't recall these sorts of numbers being posted in awhile, so here are the largest US markets for domestic traffic from the most recent quarterly data, Q3 of 2013. A few notes:

--This is by market, not necessarily airport. In cases where a single market is served by more than one airport, they are each listed.

--These "markets" follow the official Consolidated Metropolitan Area definition, or just the Metropolitan Area if it is a single entity. So that's why Newport News is lumped in with Norfolk, Daytona Beach is lumped with Orlando, Akron is lumped in with Cleveland, etc. And by the same token because Sarasota is not officially combined with the Tampa metro area, Provo is not officially combined with Salt Lake, etc, those airport numbers are not combined.

--This is strictly Origin and Destination traffic (O+D) -- connecting traffic flowing through an airport is not includes.

--Only traffic in the lower 48 is included, so no traffic to/from AK, HI or PR is included, nor any international traffic. That also means airport like SJU, HNL and LIH are not included.

These numbers are a little fuzzy around the edges because they don't include the smallest markets under 10/day. But in the big picture those probably don't represent a ton of traffic. And when you are comparing market X to market Y they both don't include passengers from those smallest markets.


Here are the markets with at least 250,000 O+D passengers for Q3 2013

1 ….. 13,151,486 ….. New York (LGA+EWR+JFK+ISP+HPN+SWF+HVN)
2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP)
3 ……. 9,416,000 ….. San Francisco (SFO+OAK+SJC)
4 ……. 8,781,600 ….. Chicago (ORD+MDW)
5 ……. 8,329,580 ….. Washington DC (DCA+BWI+IAD)
6 ……. 6,719,600 ….. Boston (BOS+PVD+MDW)
7 ……. 6,422,580 ….. Las Vegas
8 ……. 6,385,310 ….. Denver
9 ……. 6,183,600 ….. Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW+DAL)
10 ….. 5,806,080 ….. Miami/Fort Lauderdale (MIA+FLL+PBI)
11 ….. 5,426,630 ….. Orlando (MCO+SFB+DAB)
12 ….. 5,228,640 ….. Atlanta
13 ….. 4,963,370 ….. Seattle
14 ….. 4,284,080 ….. Houston (IAH+HOU)
15 ….. 3,902,782 ….. Phoenix (PHX+AZA)
17 ….. 3,686,990 ….. Philadelphia (PHL+TTN+ILG+ACY)
16 ….. 3,463,706 ….. San Diego (SAN+CLD)
18 ….. 3,378,240 ….. Minneapolis/St Paul
19 ….. 3,021,126 ….. Detroit (DTW+FNT)
20 ….. 2,790,100 ….. Tampa (TPA+PIE)
21 ….. 2,660,310 ….. Portland
22 ….. 2,195,030 ….. Charlotte
23 ….. 2,014,550 ….. Salt Lake City
24 ….. 1,986,846 ….. St Louis (STL+BLV)
25 ….. 1,834,760 ….. Kansas City
26 ….. 1,830,620 ….. Austin
27 ….. 1,682,670 ….. Nashville
28 ….. 1,647,550 ….. Sacramento
29 ….. 1,624,340 ….. Raleigh/Durham
30 ….. 1,558,260 ….. New Orleans
31 ….. 1,483,090 ….. Cleveland (CLE+CAK)
32 ….. 1,477,480 ….. Pittsburgh (PIT+LBE)
33 ….. 1,372,310 ….. San Antonio
34 ….. 1,319,860 ….. Milwaukee
35 ….. 1,295,290 ….. Indianapolis
36 ….. 1,146,516 ….. Columbus (CMH+LCK)
37 ….. 1,097,706 ….. Buffalo (BUF+IAG)
38 ….. 1,024,690 ….. Hartford/Springfield
39 ……. 944,180 ….. Albuquerque
40 ……. 931,700 ….. Jacksonville
41 ……. 898,280 ….. Fort Myers
42 ……. 764,970 ….. Omaha
43 ……. 722,910 ….. Cincinnati
44 ……. 718,980 ….. Norfolk (ORF+PHF)
45 ……. 673,610 ….. Reno
46 ……. 644,210 ….. Oklahoma City
47 ……. 597,170 ….. Louisville
48 ……. 577,080 ….. Richmond
49 ……. 573,420 ….. Charleston SC
50 ……. 573,150 ….. Memphis
51 ……. 567,720 ….. Spokane
52 ……. 503,790 ….. Tucson
53 ……. 485,980 ….. Boise
54 ……. 476,560 ….. El Paso
55 ……. 471,130 ….. Birmingham
56 ……. 467,370 ….. Myrtle Beach
57 ……. 460,340 ….. Albany
58 ……. 459,100 ….. Tulsa
59 ……. 444,440 ….. Dayton
60 ……. 440,760 ….. Rochester
61 ……. 404,550 ….. Portland ME
62 ……. 381,370 ….. Des Moines
63 ……. 380,680 ….. Grand Rapids (GRR+MKG)
64 ……. 373,200 ….. Little Rock
65 ……. 345,620 ….. Syracuse
66 ……. 320,712 ….. Madison
67 ……. 312,900 ….. Greenville/Spartanburg
68 ……. 279,312 ….. Knoxville
69 ……. 272,220 ….. Greensboro/Winston Salem
70 ……. 267,440 ….. Savannah
71 ……. 260,420 ….. Wichita
72 ……. 250,140 ….. Burlington

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter): 6 ……. 6,719,600 ….. Boston (BOS+PVD+MDW)

I assume you mean MHT, not MDW.

Looking at this list, you can see why places like CLE and MEM are losing their hubs. Particularly MEM...abysmal O&D numbers.

Even without the small markets, this table really highlights how CLT is battling far above its natural base

Quoting FlyPNS1 (Reply 1): Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter):6 %u2026%u2026. 6,719,600 %u2026.. Boston (BOS PVD MDW) I assume you mean MHT, not MDW.

Yup -- thanks for catching that. I can't edit it anymore, but hopefully it's an obvious enough mistake for people to recognize.

FYI, Pensacola just missed the 250k cutoff...PNS, FAT, COS and BLI are between 200k and 250k. The reason I didn't go any lower than 250k is that the DoT stats I used had a few omissions. I did a bunch of work to make sure nothing 250k and up has missing (TYS and MSN were) and if I posted smaller numbers I could be missing some.

Quoting FlyPNS1 (Reply 1): Looking at this list, you can see why places like CLE and MEM are losing their hubs. Particularly MEM...abysmal O&D numbers.

Without the 354k of Akron, CLE alone only has 1,129k, putting it right between Columbus and Buffalo.

Speaking of Buffalo I was surprised at how relatively high they rank (ILG adds a nominal amount to the Buffalo market totals) but I think a great deal of volume comes from over the boarder. Buffalo was the #12 market from Orlando, for example, just ahead of Houston (IAH+HOU) to Orlando.

Interesting too is that Reno ranks above many larger cities.

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter): 56 ……. 467,370 ….. Myrtle Beach

Woohoo my second home made the list!

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter): 49 ……. 573,420 ….. Charleston SC 50 ……. 573,150 ….. Memphis

Wow, I just flew out of CHS and when I think of how many people I saw there it's amazing that an airport that, until very recently, was a Delta hub had virtually the same amount of O&D, it makes me wonder how MEM ever became a hub in the first place!

DEN is the biggest surprise for me being the 16th largest CSA but 6th in overall O+D. However, geography is a big factor here.

Quoting adamh8297 (Reply 7): DEN is the biggest surprise for me being the 16th largest CSA but 6th in overall O+D. However, geography is a big factor here.

I am sure geography plays a minor role, but according to Denver Int'l Airport, "Southwest's entry into the Denver market provided a dramatic boost to domestic O&D traffic at DEN."

https://business.flydenver.com/info/news/pressKit.pdf

The additional competition greatly reduced fares out of DEN which significantly stimulated demand. In fact, the average fare out of DEN in Q3 was $335 which ranked it as the 86th highest airfare out of the top 100 airports. Since 2000, the average fare DEN dropped 42% which is the 3rd largest drop in airfares out of the top 100 airports. DEN is now one of the lower fare airports in the country and thus the main reason for the high O&D relative to population size.

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/airfares...vel_price_index/html/table_10.html

Quoting a380787 (Reply 2): this table really highlights how CLT is battling far above its natural base

The main problem CLT is geography. Within a 50 mile radius of CLT, you are already hitting the suburbs of GSP, GSO, and CAE. I know people who actually live in CLT who frequently drive to GSP and GSO just for a lower fare. And just 100 miles outside of CLT, you are just a hair away from the outer suburbs of RDU.

Interestingly enough, within a 100 mi radius of CLT, the population is 7,363,172. Within a 100 mi radius of ATL, the population is 7,975,060. While ATL is larger, ATL also doesn't have to compete with GSP/GSO/CAE/RDU for travelers.

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter): Philadelphia (PHL+TTN+ILG+ACY)

Since Trenton is considered part of the New York CSA and not the Philadelphia MSA or CSA, shouldn't it be a NYC region airport?

Practically speaking- if one lands in TTN, it's easier getting from there, from a rented car, and driving anywhere in the Philly area, rather than driving up to New York City and beyond since NYC is so much larger and congested.

I don't know if the local pax supporting TTN are heavily from Central NJ and north though, or from south of it.

ABE also is part of New York's combined statistical area, but Lehigh Valley joined more recently to that CSA, and the ABE airport is more of a regional high fare except for G4, likely not drawing traffic from too far.

[Edited 2014-02-23 21:12:55]

Six of our 7 hubs are located in the top ten, 7 in the top 15.

I continue to believe that that along with the fact that the hubs location give us good coverage of the country, and
good to decent coverage of the globe IMO - is a good thing going foward. Certainly good for all our customers and especially our business customers who are domestic and international
travelers.

We've had and continue to have our bumps post-merger, but our network, continuing to add new aircraft,
update our current ones and most importantly improve our customer service and overall product will
be our key.

I think our hubs are great assests, but we need to improve a lot of other things around them. Otherwise their
location means squat and they give us no value.

I know Vegas is popular, but for whatever reason I never thought it would be that high up there.

My mom lives in MOB. I wonder what PNS+MOB would look like. When I was a kid in Boston it seemed like
MOB had all mainline service. This was early to mid 80's. Now it seems very small. I often think of a smaller
ELP when I visit.

Great post to the OP

[Edited 2014-02-23 22:16:29]

Quoting BCEaglesCO757 (Reply 11): Six of our 7 hubs are located in the top ten, 7 in the top 15.

Looking at the list, I'm going to assume you work for UA. Some have said that the challenge for UA is that, while great hub airports, they are competing with other legacies in many of them. LAX, ORD, NYC, etc. DL, on the other hand, while having hubs with lower O&D, is enjoying not having major legacy competitors in most of it's hubs: ATL, SLC, MSP, DTW. I think this might make things somewhat easier for them relative to their peers at UA.

-Dave

Why aren't HI AK + PR numbers included? They make up a good chunk of domestic O&D at airports like LAX, SEA, and MIA...

'902

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter): 21 ….. 2,660,310 ….. Portland

I think with numbers like this that PDX can contrinue to grow at the rate it has for many more years. Amd even though these numbers do not include Intl, I'd be safe to say NRT & AMS are not going to have many issues with O/D .....

[Edited 2014-02-24 02:46:28]

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter): nor any international traffic. That also means airport like SJU, HNL and LIH are not included.

I believe KOA was the only other airport to have international service ever but it was only 1 flight to Tokyo...HA may bring it back though.

Quoting Flytravel (Reply 10): Since Trenton is considered part of the New York CSA and not the Philadelphia MSA or CSA, shouldn't it be a NYC region airport?

Quoting Flytravel (Reply 10): ABE also is part of New York's combined statistical area, but Lehigh Valley joined more recently to that CSA, and the ABE airport is more of a regional high fare except for G4, likely not drawing traffic from too far.

Thank you for catching those...I thought the Trenton airport was in Burlington County NJ which is given to Philadelphia, but it's in Mercer which is given to New York.

As for Allentown, the map I was using to validate the bounds of Combined Metro Areas was not updated to show 2013 additions. That puts ABE into NYC and Provo into Salt Lake.

I'll comb through the new list and post an update. I agree that the official CSA definitions are not necessarily perfectly aligned to an airport's true service area -- perhaps there's more TTN traffic from counties in the Philadelphia combined metro than from counties in the NY combined metro area, or maybe not. But it's something consistent to hold onto that studies and metrics were used to define rather than me just using judgment.

I'll post an update again -- I noted a few other omissions as well. Nothing so far changes rank and most of them are relatively tiny (like Hagerstown MD's Allegiant flights).

Quoting TWA902fly (Reply 13): Why aren't HI AK + PR numbers included? They make up a good chunk of domestic O&D at airports like LAX, SEA, and MIA...

I'd love to include it if the data was available, but I'm not aware of where it would be.

Here's an updated list with corrections reflecting some 2/2013 changes to Combined Metro Area definitions and some omissions.

I don't think any rankings changed, but adjustments include NYC, SF Bay area, WAS, PHL, SLC and ABQ are included.

Also verified a few others, including ORH not having any numbers in that quarter's reports, and Punta Gorda belonging to metro Sarasota (still under 250k) and not to metro Fort Myers.

I'm intending to bump these numbers up against the metro populations and posting that tonight, so if any other adjustments pop up I can make them then.


1 ….. 13,319,802 ….. New York (LGA+EWR+JFK+ISP+HPN+ABE+TTN+SWF+HVN)
2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP)
3 ……. 9,480,216 ….. San Francisco (SFO+OAK+SJC+STS+SCK)
4 ……. 8,781,600 ….. Chicago (ORD+MDW)
5 ……. 8,331,696 ….. Washington DC (DCA+BWI+IAD+HGR)
6 ……. 6,719,600 ….. Boston (BOS+PVD+MHT)
7 ……. 6,422,580 ….. Las Vegas
8 ……. 6,385,310 ….. Denver
9 ……. 6,183,600 ….. Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW+DAL)
10 ….. 5,806,080 ….. Miami/Fort Lauderdale (MIA+FLL+PBI)
11 ….. 5,426,630 ….. Orlando (MCO+SFB+DAB)
12 ….. 5,228,640 ….. Atlanta
13 ….. 4,963,370 ….. Seattle
14 ….. 4,284,080 ….. Houston (IAH+HOU)
15 ….. 3,902,782 ….. Phoenix (PHX+AZA)
17 ….. 3,686,990 ….. Philadelphia (PHL+ILG+ACY)
16 ….. 3,463,706 ….. San Diego (SAN+CLD)
18 ….. 3,378,240 ….. Minneapolis/St Paul
19 ….. 3,021,126 ….. Detroit (DTW+FNT)
20 ….. 2,790,100 ….. Tampa (TPA+PIE)
21 ….. 2,660,310 ….. Portland
22 ….. 2,195,030 ….. Charlotte
23 ….. 2,023,634 ….. Salt Lake City (SLC+PVU)
24 ….. 1,986,846 ….. St Louis (STL+BLV)
25 ….. 1,834,760 ….. Kansas City
26 ….. 1,830,620 ….. Austin
27 ….. 1,682,670 ….. Nashville
28 ….. 1,647,550 ….. Sacramento
29 ….. 1,624,340 ….. Raleigh/Durham
30 ….. 1,558,260 ….. New Orleans
31 ….. 1,483,090 ….. Cleveland (CLE+CAK)
32 ….. 1,477,480 ….. Pittsburgh (PIT+LBE)
33 ….. 1,372,310 ….. San Antonio
34 ….. 1,319,860 ….. Milwaukee
35 ….. 1,295,290 ….. Indianapolis
36 ….. 1,146,516 ….. Columbus (CMH+LCK)
37 ….. 1,097,706 ….. Buffalo (BUF+IAG)
38 ….. 1,024,690 ….. Hartford/Springfield
39 ……. 963,684 ….. Albuquerque (ABQ+SAF)
40 ……. 931,700 ….. Jacksonville
41 ……. 898,280 ….. Fort Myers
42 ……. 764,970 ….. Omaha
43 ……. 722,910 ….. Cincinnati
44 ……. 718,980 ….. Norfolk (ORF+PHF)
45 ……. 673,610 ….. Reno
46 ……. 644,210 ….. Oklahoma City
47 ……. 597,170 ….. Louisville
48 ……. 577,080 ….. Richmond
49 ……. 573,420 ….. Charleston SC
50 ……. 573,150 ….. Memphis
51 ……. 567,720 ….. Spokane
52 ……. 503,790 ….. Tucson
53 ……. 485,980 ….. Boise
54 ……. 476,560 ….. El Paso
55 ……. 471,130 ….. Birmingham
56 ……. 467,370 ….. Myrtle Beach
57 ……. 460,340 ….. Albany
58 ……. 459,100 ….. Tulsa
59 ……. 444,440 ….. Dayton
60 ……. 440,760 ….. Rochester
61 ……. 404,550 ….. Portland ME
62 ……. 381,370 ….. Des Moines
63 ……. 380,680 ….. Grand Rapids (GRR+MKG)
64 ……. 373,200 ….. Little Rock
65 ……. 345,620 ….. Syracuse
66 ……. 320,712 ….. Madison
67 ……. 312,900 ….. Greenville/Spartanburg
68 ……. 279,312 ….. Knoxville
69 ……. 272,220 ….. Greensboro/Winston Salem
70 ……. 267,440 ….. Savannah
71 ……. 260,420 ….. Wichita
72 ……. 250,140 ….. Burlington

[Edited 2014-02-24 05:10:03]

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 3): FYI, Pensacola just missed the 250k cutoff...PNS, FAT, COS and BLI are between 200k and 250k. The reason I didn't go any lower than 250k is that the DoT stats I used had a few omissions

Yeah, I wondered about PNS. Based on the numbers I have PNS would make the cut, but those numbers would include travel to places like Hawaii and international, so I'm guessing that's why PNS doesn't make your cut off.

Interesting list, it basically shows us that you probably need at least 2 million O&D quarterly to be a viable hub. Of course, some cities above that number aren't hubs either, but much of that is driven by geography. SAN has decent O&D, but terrible geography to be a hub.

Great work. Are there any estimates on how much O&D is actually fictitious?

As an example if I am going out to a trade show in LAS, and catch a AA Eagle from MQT to ORD, and then switch over to MDW for a WN flight leaving 2-3 hours later, have I not just resulted in a double counting of O&D in the Chicago?
What if I fly in to ORD on US Express from CMX and switch to a non interlined airline such as Spirit going from ORD to FLL? When I book my tickets in these cases I have two separate sets of RT tickets. I am in business for myself and because UA wants to charge me $1100 RT to fly to/from CMX LAS for a 4 day conference I can save quite a bit by splitting up my flight bookings. On this last routing I was able to get UA Express RT CMX-ORD for $272 and WN RT MDW-LAS for $298.00 so it was worth switching airports. The 25.00 interairport bus fee each way was not too objectionable! But if I had paid the $1100 to UA all the way through to LAS I would not have been counted in the O&D statistics!

I don't have hard evidence but just anecdoctal stories from people I know who switch from the single monopoly carrier serving their airport over to a different carrier at hub cities to save some money.

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17): I'm intending to bump these numbers up against the metro populations and posting that tonight, so if any other adjustments pop up I can make them then.

That would be great!

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter): 8 ……. 6,385,310 ….. Denver 9 ……. 6,183,600 ….. Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW+DAL) 10 ….. 5,806,080 ….. Miami/Fort Lauderdale (MIA+FLL+PBI) 11 ….. 5,426,630 ….. Orlando (MCO+SFB+DAB) 12 ….. 5,228,640 ….. Atlanta 13 ….. 4,963,370 ….. Seattle 14 ….. 4,284,080 ….. Houston (IAH+HOU)

Hmm. I never would have guessed that Seattle is ahead of Houston. Like others, I was also surprised that DEN is so high on the list.

Quoting adamh8297 (Reply 7): DEN is the biggest surprise for me being the 16th largest CSA but 6th in overall O+D. However, geography is a big factor here.

Geography is big, as DEN is pretty isolated and air travel is often the only way to go. And demand stimulation from the LCCs is also important. But I wonder--could these numbers also be inflated by travelers making offline connections through DEN? For example, when I search for flights out of my home airport (BZN), the cheapest alternative is often to take F9 to DEN, then connect onward with UA, WN, or another carrier. I've never taken one of those options, but I'm sure some people do, and wouldn't it get counted in the statistics as two O&D tickets? But I doubt there are enough of those to make much difference in the rankings.

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17): 23 ….. 2,023,634 ….. Salt Lake City (SLC+PVU)

Should OGD also be included in this count?

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17): 1 ….. 13,319,802 ….. New York (LGA+EWR+JFK+ISP+HPN+ABE+TTN+SWF+HVN) 2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP) 4 ……. 8,781,600 ….. Chicago (ORD+MDW) 5 ……. 8,331,696 ….. Washington DC (DCA+BWI+IAD+HGR) 9 ……. 6,183,600 ….. Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW+DAL) 10 ….. 5,806,080 ….. Miami/Fort Lauderdale (MIA+FLL+PBI) 15 ….. 3,902,782 ….. Phoenix (PHX+AZA) 17 ….. 3,686,990 ….. Philadelphia (PHL+ILG+ACY) 22 ….. 2,195,030 ….. Charlotte

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17): 1 ….. 13,319,802 ….. New York (LGA+EWR+JFK+ISP+HPN+ABE+TTN+SWF+HVN) 2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP) 3 ……. 9,480,216 ….. San Francisco (SFO+OAK+SJC+STS+SCK) 4 ……. 8,781,600 ….. Chicago (ORD+MDW) 5 ……. 8,331,696 ….. Washington DC (DCA+BWI+IAD+HGR) 8 ……. 6,385,310 ….. Denver 14 ….. 4,284,080 ….. Houston (IAH+HOU)

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17): 1 ….. 13,319,802 ….. New York (LGA+EWR+JFK+ISP+HPN+ABE+TTN+SWF+HVN) 2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP) 12 ….. 5,228,640 ….. Atlanta 13 ….. 4,963,370 ….. Seattle 18 ….. 3,378,240 ….. Minneapolis/St Paul 19 ….. 3,021,126 ….. Detroit (DTW+FNT) 23 ….. 2,023,634 ….. Salt Lake City (SLC+PVU) 43 ……. 722,910 ….. Cincinnati

For DL, counting LGA and JFK separately, I can count 6 core hubs, 2 large focus cities (LAX+SEA), and 1 hub in limbo (CVG). For UA, post CLE downsize, I can count 7 core hubs, 1 non-core hub (GUM), with no official focus cities (although UA has quite a presence at HNL). For AA, counting LGA and JFK separately, I can count 10 hubs already (DCA is 244 departures counting US metal only, so that's definitely a full hub, plus BOS's large presence makes it kinda unofficially a focus city)

Large O&D or not, it would be curious to see how AA/US maintains 10 hubs when its main rivals have 6-8.

Quoting MesaFlyGuy (Reply 6): Wow, I just flew out of CHS and when I think of how many people I saw there it's amazing that an airport that, until very recently, was a Delta hub had virtually the same amount of O&D, it makes me wonder how MEM ever became a hub in the first place!

At the time the MEM hub was created by NC, it was strictly a connecting hub and did not plan on large O+D I worked quite well for a number of years as a connecting hub.

Quoting bobnwa (Reply 23): At the time the MEM hub was created by NC, it was strictly a connecting hub and did not plan on large O+D I worked quite well for a number of years as a connecting hub.

Well, created by SO and beefed up by RC. But many former hubs were legacies of CAB route awards and the networks created by such awards. DL for example, had a small hub at MEM in the early 80's, a legacy of the old Chicago & Southern network combined with DL's later expansion.

Quoting a380787 (Reply 22):

Its insane to think that Houston is the smallest domestic O&D of all the UA hubs. Of course, once you add international IAH gets a lot closer to DEN.

Quoting knope2001 (Thread starter):

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17):

Thanks for doing all of this work..... surely puts a lot of things here into perspective.

Quoting adamh8297 (Reply 7): DEN is the biggest surprise for me being the 16th largest CSA but 6th in overall O+D.

I think that it's 8th overall in O&D.

Quoting adamh8297 (Reply 7): However, geography is a big factor here.

Quoting EricR (Reply 8): I am sure geography plays a minor role,

I think that geography plays a major role, as DEN is in the middle of nowhere here..... (as maybe the other one is SLC).... and what other major U.S. metro area (CSA, MSA, whatever) have such long drives (if one considers driving) to any other major U.S. metro area? As where almost all around the rest of the U.S., if someone starts in their car in one metro area, and drives for a day in any number of directions, there are a good number of other metro areas that one can reach.... as where with DEN, a days drive mostly ends up still in the middle of nowhere......

Quoting EricR (Reply 8): The additional competition greatly reduced fares out of DEN which significantly stimulated demand.

That is very important as well. We know that as price is lowered, demand goes up.

Quoting EricR (Reply 8): DEN is now one of the lower fare airports in the country and thus the main reason for the high O&D relative to population size.

If seats are being filled adequately with O&D premium pax resulting in higher load factors and decreased connect pax yield dilutions that probably happens because of lower fares, may carriers be happier here than with higher fares but less of a percentage of the O&D premium pax resulting in lower load factors and a higher percentage of yield diluting connect pax? Of course there may be a number of other specifics involved here, and it isn't written in stone anywhere that I can find, but only to what I'm observing as to what's been trending toward with higher O&D premium pax filling flights.

Quoting a380787 (Reply 2): Even without the small markets, this table really highlights how CLT is battling far above its natural base

Quoting USAirALB (Reply 9): The main problem CLT is geography

Seems the opposite of what's happening at DEN.......

 

Quoting FlyPNS1 (Reply 18): Yeah, I wondered about PNS. Based on the numbers I have PNS would make the cut, but those numbers would include travel to places like Hawaii and international, so I'm guessing that's why PNS doesn't make your cut off.

LOL...when I saw that PNS must missed you kind to mind right away. I looked to make sure Pensacola wasn't combined with an adjacent metro area with an airport but no such luck. With a couple of quirks in the DoT data I wasn't comfortable posting without verifying nothing was missing, and to go much farther down the list would make it far more difficult to make sure nothing was skipped.

Quoting Coronado (Reply 19): Great work. Are there any estimates on how much O&D is actually fictitious?

Nope -- I don't know that this is captured anyplace. Would be interesting to know -- it definitely happens, especially internationally.

Quoting redzeppelin (Reply 21): Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17):23 ….. 2,023,634 ….. Salt Lake City (SLC+PVU) Should OGD also be included in this count?

Yup -- doggone G4 bit me again like with Hagerstown. It's only a few thousand for the quarter but I'll include that in the update...thanks!

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 17): 2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP) 3 ……. 9,480,216 ….. San Francisco (SFO+OAK+SJC+STS+SCK)

SF has surprisingly high numbers relative to LA. So why is LAX so much busier than SFO? All due to INTL ?

Quoting adamh8297 (Reply 7): However, geography is a big factor here.

DEN, MCO, PHX, LAS have massive tourist flows, which count as O&D. It leads to much greater O&D per capita than you would get from Baltimore or Chicago, just because there is a national market to go skiing in Colorado and whatever.

Quoting a380787 (Reply 22):

Keep in mind the new AA/US has about 150 (give or take) more mainline planes than the rest of the legacies. Not counting future replacements or anything. Also AA's JFK hub is very small, with a little bit over 100 daily flights. I believe AA just keeps JFK as a "hub" or the prestige of it.

Please give us novices the link to the O&D

Interesting analysis, but ranking it seems does not quite match other similar threads we've had over years.
Actually quite severe differences in top city rankings.

The 52 Largest Domestic O&D Markets (by MAH4546 Mar 26 2008 in Civil Aviation)
Top US O&D Markets (by LAXintl Aug 20 2010 in Civil Aviation)
Top US O&D Airports (by LAXintl Jun 19 2013 in Civil Aviation)

Is this possibly because you only analyse a single quarter, and not annual time period?
Clearly there is large seasonality involved with some markets.

Thanks-I was wondering though if there were a searchable database accessable to us mere mortals where we could see the O&D traffic form x to Y

Quoting mercure1 (Reply 32): Interesting analysis, but ranking it seems does not quite match other similar threads we've had over years. Actually quite severe differences in top city rankings. The 52 Largest Domestic O&D Markets (by MAH4546 Mar 26 2008 in Civil Aviation) Top US O&D Markets (by LAXintl Aug 20 2010 in Civil Aviation) Top US O&D Airports (by LAXintl Jun 19 2013 in Civil Aviation) Is this possibly because you only analyse a single quarter, and not annual time period? Clearly there is large seasonality involved with some markets.

The data comes from the quarterly DoT survey. Those numbers only include domestic O+D numbers in the lower 48, which is why there’s nothing from AK, HI or PR. They also cut off at 10x/day, so the smallest markets are not included. The latest numbers just came out for Q3 2013, so especially in highly-seasonal markets there’s some variation versus full-year numbers. Like I said when I originally posted there’s some fuzziness along the edges but they should be pretty meaningful.



The primary source I used was Table 7, which gave O+D totals for airports – what I was ultimately looking for. I am more accustomed to using Table 6 which details by city pair, but when took a few sample cities individual numbers from table 6 and multiplied by days in the quarter they squared pretty well with Table 7, so I was comfortable using them. There were two times I had to go to Table 6 for supplemental information:



1. When I sorted table 7 by size and scrolled down the data made sense but as I got nearer to the bottom it was clear smaller airports were not included. That’s why I only included markets with 250k+ pax in the quarter. Even among these markets table 7 did not include Knoxville and Madison. I am not sure why, but I got the TYS and MSN numbers by adding up city pair totals in Table 6 for those cities. I’m pretty sure none others above 250k were missing – I did a bunch of cross checking and validating and I believe all markets 250k and up are included. I would have loved to have this data down to the smallest airports but I don’t think the data in table 7 is complete for the smaller airports and I wasn’t going to add up every city pair in Table 6.



2. Some airports within a metro area were definitely too small for Table 7, so I had to get their numbers by tallying the city pairs from Table 6. Generally those were smaller – the size of O+D from greater SF Bay isn’t going to vary too much by what I tally for Santa Rosa and Stockton, but they were included using Table 6.





What might this ranking be somewhat different than some other rankings?



1. This is strictly US domestic O+D to/from the lower 48…no connections, no international, no Hawaii, Alaska or Puerto Rico. (Many but not all are clear on that distinction.)



2. This is the 3rd quarter so seasonal variation definitely applies versus other lists. If compared to a previous list which used annual numbers there could be some notable difference here and there. If compared to a single different quarter, like Q3 2013 versus Q1 2011 there are likely more pronounced variations.



3. This is by combined metro statistical area using the updated definitions from February 2013. That means West Palm Beach is rolled in with Miami & Fort Lauderdale, it means Flint is rolled in with Detroit, Trenton is rolled in with New York, etc. Some other O+D lists posted have been by airport, but I grouped them by consolidated metro area. Other O+D lists posted by metro may have used a different definition of what they consider “Philadelphia” to be, for example. A big obvious difference from the 2008 list is BWI is shown separately and not as part of Washington. I used the official consolidated metro definitions to be standard to something versus just using my own standards.



4. A fair amount of changes to O+D demand have taken place in recent years, so I would expect some position jockeying versus a tally from a few years back. For example Austin seems to have been on a tear in the past few years while many other mid-sized airports have seen rather flat or slightly slipping numbers.

Quoting ultrapig (Reply 33): Thanks-I was wondering though if there were a searchable database accessable to us mere mortals where we could see the O&D traffic form x to Y

If I were smart I’d keep this information in a document and just cut and paste it when someone asks!



The O+D stats are at this link and they come out quarterly. There are other sources on the web (both paid and free) but I believe they ultimately roll back to these same core quarterly stats. They are extrapolated from a 10% overall sample if I’m not mistaken, but I think they are the most complete and accurate out there.



Within these stats are multiple tables. The one I tend to use most is Table 6. It lists O+D markets with 10 or more average daily passengers for the quarter. That “10” is both ways combined, so if you see AAA-BBB has 78 daily passengers, that’s an average of 39 each way. The table also lists the average fare, the market share and fare of the largest carrier, and the market share and fare of the cheapest carrier.



A key thing to know about Table 6 is that it gives *combined numbers* for some select multi-airport communities. It combines IAH and HOU as “Houston Area”, for example. If you’re looking at Atlanta-Houston, for example, you won’t find O+D between Atlanta and Houston Hobby or Houston Intercontinental in table 6, you’ll find Atlanta-Houston combined. What can make it more confusing is that when you look at the airport codes in Table 6, you might find that combined Atlanta-Houston number listed as ATL-IAH *or* as ATL-HOU. If you see in Table 6 ATL-HOU listed as 1200 you might think 1200 people travel between Atlanta and Hobby, but in fact that both Hobby and Bush combined. If you see in table 6 ATL-STL listed as 850 that is accurate for daily travel between Atlanta Hartsfield and St Louis Lambert because each of those cities has one airport. When you see CMH-MCO in table 6 listed as 900 you may think that includes Columbus-Orlando International and Columbus-Sanford/Orlando Airport, but in fact the DoT does *not* combine MCO and SFB into “Orlando” in table 6. It can be confusing.



I believe these are the ones currently combined in table 6: Boston = BOS+MHT+PVD, New York = LGA+JFK+EWR+ISP+HPN+SWF, Washington = DCA+BWI+IAD, Norfolk = ORF+PHF, Miami = MIA+FLL, Houston = IAH+HOU, Dallas = DFW+DAL, Cleveland = CLE+CAK, Chicago = ORD+MDW, Los Angeles = LAX+SNA+BUR+ONT+LGB, San Francisco = SFO+OAK+SJC.



To get O+D from individual airports within a combined reporting entity, use table 1a. It has the same data as Table 6, but it gives individual airport breakdowns for cases where table 6 rolls them together. In 1a you’ll find ATL-HOU and ATL-IAH separate. You’ll find ORD-HOU, ORD-IAH, MDW-HOU and MDW-IAH as separate where in table 6 they were all lumped into a single “Chicago-Houston” number. But you won’t find ATL-STL in table 1a because neither Atlanta nor St Louis is a multi-airport entity in table 6.



How do you know when you can use table 6 and when you must instead look at 1a? Check table 1a if there’s any doubt.



Let’s say you want just Cleveland Hopkins numbers and are concerned Akron might be rolled into the CLE numbers in Table 6. Look at table 1a. When you look in there you’ll see dozens and dozens of both CLE-xxx and CAK-xxx numbers to all sorts of cities which are not multi-airport. For example you’ll see both CLE-RSW and CAK-RSW, CLE-DEN and CAK-DEN, CLE-MSP and CAK-MSP, etc. That’s a sure sign that in Table 6 CLE and CAK are combined and Table 1a is the place to get the individual airport date. Now let’s say you want Detroit Metro numbers and are worried that Flint might be rolled in. Look again at Table 1A. You will find a fair number of DTW and FNT entries in Table 1a, but they are all to cities with multiple airports. You’ll see DTW-DAL, DTW-DFW, FNT-DAL and FNT-DFW, but that’s because Dallas is multi-airport. You won’t see DTW-ATL and FNT-ATL in Table 1a, which tells you the airports are not combined in Table 6 – that data is separate.



And…just to keep you on your toes if you go back in the data you’ll find some differences. If you go a few years back you’ll find CLE and CAK were not always combined. And maybe in a future release you’ll see DTW and FNT are. Using the smell test can sometimes help. If in a *future* quarterly release you are looking at Denver numbers in Table 6 and you notice DEN-FNT shows 975/day but DEN-DTW seems missing, that’s a good sign that now Detroit and Flint have been combined and it so happens Denver-Detroit Area was listed as FNT. It’s not always the largest or obvious city code listed. You may see in table 6 that 3800 people per day are listed flying from Providence to Ontario, which would be quite a feat. But in fact that is the combined total of all 15 unique city pairs linking (BOS-PVD-MHT-) with (LAX-SNA-BUR-ONT-LGB)



Table 7 which I used for this list shows total O+D for the quarter, and then also breaks it down between short and longer haul and focuses on % offered by low-cost carriers. But the totals should be accurate for the whole O+D market – you can’t say 46% of all O+D traffic at airport XYZ was on low cost carriers without having the total O+D, of course.



Table 5 is the other one I use sometimes. It shows all the carriers with a significant number of passengers in large markets, and instead of average daily it shows total number for the quarter – again, both directions combined.

What’s nice about this versus Table 6 and Table 1a is that you can get the market share and fare of multiple airlines in a competitive market. Table 6 and 1a just give you the largest and cheapest carrier, and sometimes that’s the same one. But 5 will show you that in STL-DEN that United did X, Frontier did Y, and Southwest did Z. Roughly speaking you’ll find the nonstop carriers in markets with fairly substantial local traffic – MSP-BOS yes but MSP-FAR no. The definition of “significant number” and “larger markets” is fuzzy, however. I’ve never been able to find a cutoff, and sometimes it doesn’t seem everybody is listed. So table 5 is one of those I find interesting and useful but may not have everything I want. Note that Table 5 is like 6 in combining airports is deems to be a single entity.



Two additional caveats on these numbers.



1. There have periodically been issues when a regional carrier did not show up in these numbers for whatever reason. The classic example is for something like 5 out of 6 consecutive quarters a few year back ExpressJet did not. So if you looked at a market like CLE-BDL – a market served nonstop by Express Jet at CO* with multiple daily RJ’s – you’d see bad information. For those six quarters, one of the six quarters you’d see CLE-BDL as 150 passengers with CO* having 80% of the market, and the other five quarters the stats would say CLE-BDL had 30 passengers per day and the largest carrier was Delta or USAirways. I’ve seen this a number of times over the years with regionals including Chautauqua and Mesaba too. When there’s a decent-sized market served by one regional, an issue like this can stick out like a sore thumb. But what’s a little scary is that with how much regions are swapped by the majors you can’t always notice an issue like this. Let’s say one quarter DAY-ORD on United is mostly UA*Skywest and they report. Then the next quarter it happens to be UA* 80% TranStates and 20% Skywest flights operating DAY-ORD (this is not too uncommon a swap) and TranStates numbers are for whatever reason not in the reports. The reported DAY-ORD UA number would plummet. And it’s not clear how DAY-ORD-LAX (for example) would be affected if the DAY-ORD leg was UA* on TranStates, but you can see how things could get messed up. I had hoped that this sort of problem was in the past, but I was disheartened to notice that US* point-to-point RJ nonstops from PIT to BDL, STL and RDU are clearly not shown in these Q3 status. They’re operated by TranStates (AX) which makes me wonder if any US* operated by them show, or if these don’t because they are at-risk flying. Anyway…this is something to be a bit wary of, especially if you’re working with these numbers in the smaller markets. It can help to use the “smell test”. If you’re looking at numbers from Montgomery…which only has DL* to ATL, US* to CLT and AA* to DFW…and Delta has 85% market share to places like Washington, New York, etc, that might not make sense. And if you see MGM-CLT is listed at 11 passengers per day and Delta has 81% market share even though US* flies MGM-CLT nonstop, that’s a clear sign US* isn’t being fully reported.



2. There’s a tendency, especially when you’re first playing with these numbers, to perhaps read too much into them. You see Louisville-Austin as 80 passengers per day and can’t figure out why someone can’t fly a nonstop CRJ in the market because that’s only 50 seats each way so it would be 80% full. Or even worse you think it’s 80 each way. The problem is that travelers stick with their preferred airline, or they want to fly at a different time than the nonstop goes, or there are 130 people on Mondays but only 30 on Tuesdays, or the 80 people are not paying fares high enough to cover the high CRJ cost. On the flip side people will sometimes pronounce doom on a new market because only X people fly between those two cities. That can be equally misguided because new nonstop flying sometimes serves a lot more passengers than the city pair previously reported – check out my explanation in the DEN-NRT thread if you care you on how that works. So bottom line…enjoy and learn from these numbers but avoid using them as gospel because you’ll be proven wrong plenty of times. Been there, done that!  

Here's the list again ranked by lower-48 O D, including population and passengers per 1,000 residents in the quarter.

1 ….. 13,319,802 ….. 1 ….. 23,362,099 ….. 570 … NY(LGA/EWR/JFK/ISP/HPN/ABE/TTN/SWF/HVN)
2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. 2 ….. 18,238,998 ….. 640 … Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP)
3 ……. 9,480,216 ….. 5 ……. 8,370,967 .. 1,133 … San Francisco (SFO+OAK+SJC+STS+SCK)
4 ……. 8,781,600 ….. 3 ……. 9,899,902 ….. 887 … Chicago (ORD+MDW)
5 ……. 8,331,696 ….. 4 ……. 9,331,587 ….. 893 … Washington DC (DCA+BWI+IAD+HGR)
6 ……. 6,719,600 ….. 6 ……. 7,991,371 ….. 841 … Boston (BOS+PVD+MHT)
7 ……. 6,422,580 ….. 30 ….. 2,247,056 .. 2,858 … Las Vegas
8 ……. 6,385,310 ….. 17 ….. 3,214,218 .. 1,987 … Denver
9 ……. 6,183,600 ….. 8 ……. 7,095,411 ….. 871 … Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW+DAL)
10 ….. 5,806,080 ….. 9 ……. 6,375,434 ….. 911 … Miami/Fort Lauderdale (MIA+FLL+PBI)
11 ….. 5,426,630 ….. 20 ….. 2,920,603 .. 1,858 … Orlando (MCO+SFB+DAB)
12 ….. 5,228,640 ….. 11 ….. 6,092,295 ….. 858 … Atlanta
13 ….. 4,963,370 ….. 13 ….. 4,399,332 .. 1,128 … Seattle
14 ….. 4,284,080 ….. 10 ….. 6,371,677 ….. 672 … Houston (IAH+HOU)
15 ….. 3,902,782 ….. 14 ….. 4,329,534 ….. 901 … Phoenix (PHX+AZA)
16 ….. 3,686,990 ….. 7 ……. 7,129,428 ….. 517 … Philadelphia (PHL+ILG+ACY)
17 ….. 3,463,706 ….. 18 ….. 3,177,063 .. 1,090 … San Diego (SAN+CLD)
18 ….. 3,378,240 ….. 15 ….. 3,759,978 ….. 898 … Minneapolis/St Paul
19 ….. 3,021,126 ….. 12 ….. 5,311,449 ….. 569 … Detroit (DTW+FNT)
20 ….. 2,790,100 ….. 22 ….. 2,872,878 ….. 971 … Tampa (TPA+PIE)
21 ….. 2,660,310 ….. 19 ….. 2,992,924 ….. 889 … Portland
22 ….. 2,195,030 ….. 25 ….. 2,454,619 ….. 894 … Charlotte
23 ….. 2,026,302 ….. 27 ….. 2,350,274 ….. 862 … Salt Lake City (SLC+PVU+OGD)
24 ….. 1,986,846 ….. 21 ….. 2,900,605 ….. 685 … St Louis (STL+BLV)
25 ….. 1,834,760 ….. 26 ….. 2,376,631 ….. 772 … Kansas City
26 ….. 1,830,620 ….. 37 ….. 1,834,303 ….. 998 … Austin
27 ….. 1,682,670 ….. 36 ….. 1,845,235 ….. 912 … Nashville
28 ….. 1,647,550 ….. 24 ….. 2,462,722 ….. 669 … Sacramento
29 ….. 1,624,340 ….. 35 ….. 1,998,808 ….. 813 … Raleigh/Durham
30 ….. 1,558,260 ….. 42 ….. 1,452,502 .. 1,073 … New Orleans
31 ….. 1,483,090 ….. 16 ….. 3,497,711 ….. 424 … Cleveland (CLE+CAK)
32 ….. 1,477,480 ….. 23 ….. 2,661,369 ….. 555 … Pittsburgh (PIT+LBE)
33 ….. 1,372,310 ….. 31 ….. 2,234,003 ….. 614 … San Antonio
34 ….. 1,319,860 ….. 34 ….. 2,037,542 ….. 648 … Milwaukee
35 ….. 1,295,290 ….. 29 ….. 2,310,360 ….. 561 … Indianapolis
36 ….. 1,146,516 ….. 28 ….. 2,348,495 ….. 488 … Columbus (CMH+LCK)
37 ….. 1,097,706 ….. 50 ….. 1,213,668 ….. 904 … Buffalo (BUF+IAG)
38 ….. 1,024,690 ….. 33 ….. 2,185,828 ….. 469 … Hartford/Springfield
39 ……. 963,684 ….. 53 ….. 1,162,777 ….. 829 … Albuquerque (ABQ+SAF)
40 ……. 931,700 ….. 40 ….. 1,502,515 ….. 620 … Jacksonville
41 ……. 898,280 ….. 60 ……. 977,720 ….. 919 … Fort Myers
42 ……. 764,970 ….. 62 ……. 922,051 ….. 830 … Omaha
43 ……. 722,910 ….. 32 ….. 2,188,001 ….. 330 … Cincinnati
44 ……. 718,980 ….. 38 ….. 1,803,080 ….. 399 … Norfolk (ORF+PHF)
45 ……. 673,610 ….. 00 ……. 433,843 .. 1,553 … Reno
46 ……. 644,210 ….. 46 ….. 1,367,325 ….. 471 … Oklahoma City
47 ……. 597,170 ….. 41 ….. 1,478,637 ….. 404 … Louisville
48 ……. 577,080 ….. 48 ….. 1,231,980 ….. 468 … Richmond
49 ……. 573,420 ….. 77 ……. 697,439 ….. 822 … Charleston SC
50 ……. 573,150 ….. 45 ….. 1,369,548 ….. 418 … Memphis
51 ……. 567,720 ….. 79 ……. 674,610 ….. 842 … Spokane
52 ……. 503,790 ….. 59 ….. 1,039,697 ….. 485 … Tucson
53 ……. 485,980 ….. 74 ……. 717,388 ….. 677 … Boise
54 ……. 476,560 ….. 58 ….. 1,045,180 ….. 456 … El Paso
55 ……. 471,130 ….. 47 ….. 1,309,818 ….. 360 … Birmingham
56 ……. 467,370 ….. 00 ……. 454,371 .. 1,029 … Myrtle Beach
57 ……. 460,340 ….. 52 ….. 1,170,483 ….. 393 … Albany
58 ……. 459,100 ….. 54 ….. 1,122,259 ….. 409 … Tulsa
59 ……. 444,440 ….. 57 ….. 1,079,417 ….. 412 … Dayton
60 ……. 440,760 ….. 51 ….. 1,177,566 ….. 374 … Rochester
61 ……. 404,550 ….. 00 ……. 625,727 ….. 647 … Portland ME
62 ……. 381,370 ….. 71 ……. 742,936 ….. 513 … Des Moines
63 ……. 380,680 ….. 43 ….. 1,395,128 ….. 273 … Grand Rapids (GRR+MKG)
64 ……. 373,200 ….. 65 ……. 893,610 ….. 418 … Little Rock
65 ……. 345,620 ….. 72 ……. 740,486 ….. 467 … Syracuse
66 ……. 320,712 ….. 68 ……. 843,793 ….. 380 … Madison
67 ……. 312,900 ….. 44 ….. 1,384,996 ….. 226 … Greenville/Spartanburg
68 ……. 279,312 ….. 56 ….. 1,091,370 ….. 256 … Knoxville
69 ……. 272,220 ….. 39 ….. 1,611,243 ….. 169 … Greensboro/Winston Salem
70 ……. 267,440 ….. 00 ……. 516,154 ….. 518 … Savannah
71 ……. 260,420 ….. 80 ……. 672,393 ….. 387 … Wichita
72 ……. 250,140 ….. 00 ……. 213,701 .. 1,171 … Burlington

Here are the same 72 markets sorted by population -- the population rank is the 3rd column. Note that these are not the 72 largest metro areas. The handful of metro areas under 600,000 show "00" as ranking because I didn't figure out how they stack up in population rank.

1 ….. 13,319,802 ….. 1 ….. 23,362,099 ….. 570 … NY (LGA/EWR/JFK/ISP/HPN/ABE/TTN/SWF/HVN)
2 ….. 11,675,670 ….. 2 ….. 18,238,998 ….. 640 … Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP)
4 ……. 8,781,600 ….. 3 ……. 9,899,902 ….. 887 … Chicago (ORD+MDW)
5 ……. 8,331,696 ….. 4 ……. 9,331,587 ….. 893 … Washington DC (DCA+BWI+IAD+HGR)
3 ……. 9,480,216 ….. 5 ……. 8,370,967 .. 1,133 … San Francisco (SFO+OAK+SJC+STS+SCK)
6 ……. 6,719,600 ….. 6 ……. 7,991,371 ….. 841 … Boston (BOS+PVD+MHT)
16 ….. 3,686,990 ….. 7 ……. 7,129,428 ….. 517 … Philadelphia (PHL+ILG+ACY)
9 ……. 6,183,600 ….. 8 ……. 7,095,411 ….. 871 … Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW+DAL)
10 ….. 5,806,080 ….. 9 ……. 6,375,434 ….. 911 … Miami/Fort Lauderdale (MIA+FLL+PBI)
14 ….. 4,284,080 ….. 10 ….. 6,371,677 ….. 672 … Houston (IAH+HOU)
12 ….. 5,228,640 ….. 11 ….. 6,092,295 ….. 858 … Atlanta
19 ….. 3,021,126 ….. 12 ….. 5,311,449 ….. 569 … Detroit (DTW+FNT)
13 ….. 4,963,370 ….. 13 ….. 4,399,332 .. 1,128 … Seattle
15 ….. 3,902,782 ….. 14 ….. 4,329,534 ….. 901 … Phoenix (PHX+AZA)
18 ….. 3,378,240 ….. 15 ….. 3,759,978 ….. 898 … Minneapolis/St Paul
31 ….. 1,483,090 ….. 16 ….. 3,497,711 ….. 424 … Cleveland (CLE+CAK)
8 ……. 6,385,310 ….. 17 ….. 3,214,218 .. 1,987 … Denver
17 ….. 3,463,706 ….. 18 ….. 3,177,063 .. 1,090 … San Diego (SAN+CLD)
21 ….. 2,660,310 ….. 19 ….. 2,992,924 ….. 889 … Portland
11 ….. 5,426,630 ….. 20 ….. 2,920,603 .. 1,858 … Orlando (MCO+SFB+DAB)
24 ….. 1,986,846 ….. 21 ….. 2,900,605 ….. 685 … St Louis (STL+BLV)
20 ….. 2,790,100 ….. 22 ….. 2,872,878 ….. 971 … Tampa (TPA+PIE)
32 ….. 1,477,480 ….. 23 ….. 2,661,369 ….. 555 … Pittsburgh (PIT+LBE)
28 ….. 1,647,550 ….. 24 ….. 2,462,722 ….. 669 … Sacramento
22 ….. 2,195,030 ….. 25 ….. 2,454,619 ….. 894 … Charlotte
25 ….. 1,834,760 ….. 26 ….. 2,376,631 ….. 772 … Kansas City
23 ….. 2,026,302 ….. 27 ….. 2,350,274 ….. 862 … Salt Lake City (SLC+PVU+OGD)
36 ….. 1,146,516 ….. 28 ….. 2,348,495 ….. 488 … Columbus (CMH+LCK)
35 ….. 1,295,290 ….. 29 ….. 2,310,360 ….. 561 … Indianapolis
7 ……. 6,422,580 ….. 30 ….. 2,247,056 .. 2,858 … Las Vegas
33 ….. 1,372,310 ….. 31 ….. 2,234,003 ….. 614 … San Antonio
43 ……. 722,910 ….. 32 ….. 2,188,001 ….. 330 … Cincinnati
38 ….. 1,024,690 ….. 33 ….. 2,185,828 ….. 469 … Hartford/Springfield
34 ….. 1,319,860 ….. 34 ….. 2,037,542 ….. 648 … Milwaukee
29 ….. 1,624,340 ….. 35 ….. 1,998,808 ….. 813 … Raleigh/Durham
27 ….. 1,682,670 ….. 36 ….. 1,845,235 ….. 912 … Nashville
26 ….. 1,830,620 ….. 37 ….. 1,834,303 ….. 998 … Austin
44 ……. 718,980 ….. 38 ….. 1,803,080 ….. 399 … Norfolk (ORF+PHF)
69 ……. 272,220 ….. 39 ….. 1,611,243 ….. 169 … Greensboro/Winston Salem
40 ……. 931,700 ….. 40 ….. 1,502,515 ….. 620 … Jacksonville
47 ……. 597,170 ….. 41 ….. 1,478,637 ….. 404 … Louisville
30 ….. 1,558,260 ….. 42 ….. 1,452,502 .. 1,073 … New Orleans
63 ……. 380,680 ….. 43 ….. 1,395,128 ….. 273 … Grand Rapids (GRR+MKG)
67 ……. 312,900 ….. 44 ….. 1,384,996 ….. 226 … Greenville/Spartanburg
50 ……. 573,150 ….. 45 ….. 1,369,548 ….. 418 … Memphis
46 ……. 644,210 ….. 46 ….. 1,367,325 ….. 471 … Oklahoma City
55 ……. 471,130 ….. 47 ….. 1,309,818 ….. 360 … Birmingham
48 ……. 577,080 ….. 48 ….. 1,231,980 ….. 468 … Richmond
37 ….. 1,097,706 ….. 50 ….. 1,213,668 ….. 904 … Buffalo (BUF+IAG)
60 ……. 440,760 ….. 51 ….. 1,177,566 ….. 374 … Rochester
57 ……. 460,340 ….. 52 ….. 1,170,483 ….. 393 … Albany
39 ……. 963,684 ….. 53 ….. 1,162,777 ….. 829 … Albuquerque (ABQ+SAF)
58 ……. 459,100 ….. 54 ….. 1,122,259 ….. 409 … Tulsa
68 ……. 279,312 ….. 56 ….. 1,091,370 ….. 256 … Knoxville
59 ……. 444,440 ….. 57 ….. 1,079,417 ….. 412 … Dayton
54 ……. 476,560 ….. 58 ….. 1,045,180 ….. 456 … El Paso
52 ……. 503,790 ….. 59 ….. 1,039,697 ….. 485 … Tucson
41 ……. 898,280 ….. 60 ……. 977,720 ….. 919 … Fort Myers
42 ……. 764,970 ….. 62 ……. 922,051 ….. 830 … Omaha
64 ……. 373,200 ….. 65 ……. 893,610 ….. 418 … Little Rock
66 ……. 320,712 ….. 68 ……. 843,793 ….. 380 … Madison
62 ……. 381,370 ….. 71 ……. 742,936 ….. 513 … Des Moines
65 ……. 345,620 ….. 72 ……. 740,486 ….. 467 … Syracuse
53 ……. 485,980 ….. 74 ……. 717,388 ….. 677 … Boise
49 ……. 573,420 ….. 77 ……. 697,439 ….. 822 … Charleston SC
51 ……. 567,720 ….. 79 ……. 674,610 ….. 842 … Spokane
71 ……. 260,420 ….. 80 ……. 672,393 ….. 387 … Wichita
45 ……. 673,610 ….. 00 ……. 433,843 .. 1,553 … Reno
56 ……. 467,370 ….. 00 ……. 454,371 .. 1,029 … Myrtle Beach
61 ……. 404,550 ….. 00 ……. 625,727 ….. 647 … Portland ME
70 ……. 267,440 ….. 00 ……. 516,154 ….. 518 … Savannah
72 ……. 250,140 ….. 00 ……. 213,701 .. 1,171 … Burlington

Finally, here are those 72 sorted by passengers in the quarter per 1,000 population.

2,858 … Las Vegas
1,987 … Denver
1,858 … Orlando (MCO+SFB+DAB)
1,553 … Reno
1,171 … Burlington
1,133 … San Francisco (SFO+OAK+SJC+STS+SCK)
1,128 … Seattle
1,090 … San Diego (SAN+CLD)
1,073 … New Orleans
1,029 … Myrtle Beach
998 … Austin
971 … Tampa (TPA+PIE)
919 … Fort Myers
912 … Nashville
911 … Miami/Fort Lauderdale (MIA+FLL+PBI)
904 … Buffalo (BUF+IAG)
901 … Phoenix (PHX+AZA)
898 … Minneapolis/St Paul
894 … Charlotte
893 … Washington DC (DCA+BWI+IAD+HGR)
889 … Portland
887 … Chicago (ORD+MDW)
871 … Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW+DAL)
862 … Salt Lake City (SLC+PVU+OGD)
858 … Atlanta
842 … Spokane
841 … Boston (BOS+PVD+MHT)
830 … Omaha
829 … Albuquerque (ABQ+SAF)
822 … Charleston SC
813 … Raleigh/Durham
772 … Kansas City
685 … St Louis (STL+BLV)
677 … Boise
672 … Houston (IAH+HOU)
669 … Sacramento
648 … Milwaukee
647 … Portland ME
640 … Los Angeles (LAX+LGB+BUR+ONT+SNA+PSP)
620 … Jacksonville
614 … San Antonio
570 … NY (LGA/EWR/JFK/ISP/HPN/ABE/TTN/SWF/HVN)
569 … Detroit (DTW+FNT)
561 … Indianapolis
555 … Pittsburgh (PIT+LBE)
518 … Savannah
517 … Philadelphia (PHL+ILG+ACY)
513 … Des Moines
488 … Columbus (CMH+LCK)
485 … Tucson
471 … Oklahoma City
469 … Hartford/Springfield
468 … Richmond
467 … Syracuse
456 … El Paso
424 … Cleveland (CLE+CAK)
418 … Memphis
418 … Little Rock
412 … Dayton
409 … Tulsa
404 … Louisville
399 … Norfolk (ORF+PHF)
393 … Albany
387 … Wichita
380 … Madison
374 … Rochester
360 … Birmingham
330 … Cincinnati
273 … Grand Rapids (GRR+MKG)
256 … Knoxville
226 … Greenville/Spartanburg
169 … Greensboro/Winston Salem

It might be a more fair / useful comparison to group these into like markets, but for now I'll just post 'em as they are.

Duh....the link might help...

http://www.dot.gov/policy/aviation-p...stic-airline-fares-consumer-report

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 34): If I were smart I’d keep this information in a document and just cut and paste it when someone asks! The O+D stats are at this link and they come out quarterly. There are other sources on the web (both paid and free) but I believe they ultimately roll back to these same core quarterly stats. They are extrapolated from a 10% overall sample if I’m not mistaken, but I think they are the most complete and accurate out there. Within these stats are multiple tables. The one I tend to use most is Table 6. It lists O+D markets with 10 or more average daily passengers for the quarter. That “10” is both ways combined, so if you see AAA-BBB has 78 daily passengers, that’s an average of 39 each way. The table also lists the average fare, the market share and fare of the largest carrier, and the market share and fare of the cheapest carrier. A key thing to know about Table 6 is that it gives *combined numbers* for some select multi-airport communities. It combines IAH and HOU as “Houston Area”, for example. If you’re looking at Atlanta-Houston, for example, you won’t find O+D between Atlanta and Houston Hobby or Houston Intercontinental in table 6, you’ll find Atlanta-Houston combined. What can make it more confusing is that when you look at the airport codes in Table 6, you might find that combined Atlanta-Houston number listed as ATL-IAH *or* as ATL-HOU. If you see in Table 6 ATL-HOU listed as 1200 you might think 1200 people travel between Atlanta and Hobby, but in fact that both Hobby and Bush combined. If you see in table 6 ATL-STL listed as 850 that is accurate for daily travel between Atlanta Hartsfield and St Louis Lambert because each of those cities has one airport. When you see CMH-MCO in table 6 listed as 900 you may think that includes Columbus-Orlando International and Columbus-Sanford/Orlando Airport, but in fact the DoT does *not* combine MCO and SFB into “Orlando” in table 6. It can be confusing. I believe these are the ones currently combined in table 6: Boston = BOS+MHT+PVD, New York = LGA+JFK+EWR+ISP+HPN+SWF, Washington = DCA+BWI+IAD, Norfolk = ORF+PHF, Miami = MIA+FLL, Houston = IAH+HOU, Dallas = DFW+DAL, Cleveland = CLE+CAK, Chicago = ORD+MDW, Los Angeles = LAX+SNA+BUR+ONT+LGB, San Francisco = SFO+OAK+SJC. To get O+D from individual airports within a combined reporting entity, use table 1a. It has the same data as Table 6, but it gives individual airport breakdowns for cases where table 6 rolls them together. In 1a you’ll find ATL-HOU and ATL-IAH separate. You’ll find ORD-HOU, ORD-IAH, MDW-HOU and MDW-IAH as separate where in table 6 they were all lumped into a single “Chicago-Houston” number. But you won’t find ATL-STL in table 1a because neither Atlanta nor St Louis is a multi-airport entity in table 6. How do you know when you can use table 6 and when you must instead look at 1a? Check table 1a if there’s any doubt. Let’s say you want just Cleveland Hopkins numbers and are concerned Akron might be rolled into the CLE numbers in Table 6. Look at table 1a. When you look in there you’ll see dozens and dozens of both CLE-xxx and CAK-xxx numbers to all sorts of cities which are not multi-airport. For example you’ll see both CLE-RSW and CAK-RSW, CLE-DEN and CAK-DEN, CLE-MSP and CAK-MSP, etc. That’s a sure sign that in Table 6 CLE and CAK are combined and Table 1a is the place to get the individual airport date. Now let’s say you want Detroit Metro numbers and are worried that Flint might be rolled in. Look again at Table 1A. You will find a fair number of DTW and FNT entries in Table 1a, but they are all to cities with multiple airports. You’ll see DTW-DAL, DTW-DFW, FNT-DAL and FNT-DFW, but that’s because Dallas is multi-airport. You won’t see DTW-ATL and FNT-ATL in Table 1a, which tells you the airports are not combined in Table 6 – that data is separate. And…just to keep you on your toes if you go back in the data you’ll find some differences. If you go a few years back you’ll find CLE and CAK were not always combined. And maybe in a future release you’ll see DTW and FNT are. Using the smell test can sometimes help. If in a *future* quarterly release you are looking at Denver numbers in Table 6 and you notice DEN-FNT shows 975/day but DEN-DTW seems missing, that’s a good sign that now Detroit and Flint have been combined and it so happens Denver-Detroit Area was listed as FNT. It’s not always the largest or obvious city code listed. You may see in table 6 that 3800 people per day are listed flying from Providence to Ontario, which would be quite a feat. But in fact that is the combined total of all 15 unique city pairs linking (BOS-PVD-MHT-) with (LAX-SNA-BUR-ONT-LGB) Table 7 which I used for this list shows total O+D for the quarter, and then also breaks it down between short and longer haul and focuses on % offered by low-cost carriers. But the totals should be accurate for the whole O+D market – you can’t say 46% of all O+D traffic at airport XYZ was on low cost carriers without having the total O+D, of course. Table 5 is the other one I use sometimes. It shows all the carriers with a significant number of passengers in large markets, and instead of average daily it shows total number for the quarter – again, both directions combined. What’s nice about this versus Table 6 and Table 1a is that you can get the market share and fare of multiple airlines in a competitive market. Table 6 and 1a just give you the largest and cheapest carrier, and sometimes that’s the same one. But 5 will show you that in STL-DEN that United did X, Frontier did Y, and Southwest did Z. Roughly speaking you’ll find the nonstop carriers in markets with fairly substantial local traffic – MSP-BOS yes but MSP-FAR no. The definition of “significant number” and “larger markets” is fuzzy, however. I’ve never been able to find a cutoff, and sometimes it doesn’t seem everybody is listed. So table 5 is one of those I find interesting and useful but may not have everything I want. Note that Table 5 is like 6 in combining airports is deems to be a single entity. Two additional caveats on these numbers. 1. There have periodically been issues when a regional carrier did not show up in these numbers for whatever reason. The classic example is for something like 5 out of 6 consecutive quarters a few year back ExpressJet did not. So if you looked at a market like CLE-BDL – a market served nonstop by Express Jet at CO* with multiple daily RJ’s – you’d see bad information. For those six quarters, one of the six quarters you’d see CLE-BDL as 150 passengers with CO* having 80% of the market, and the other five quarters the stats would say CLE-BDL had 30 passengers per day and the largest carrier was Delta or USAirways. I’ve seen this a number of times over the years with regionals including Chautauqua and Mesaba too. When there’s a decent-sized market served by one regional, an issue like this can stick out like a sore thumb. But what’s a little scary is that with how much regions are swapped by the majors you can’t always notice an issue like this. Let’s say one quarter DAY-ORD on United is mostly UA*Skywest and they report. Then the next quarter it happens to be UA* 80% TranStates and 20% Skywest flights operating DAY-ORD (this is not too uncommon a swap) and TranStates numbers are for whatever reason not in the reports. The reported DAY-ORD UA number would plummet. And it’s not clear how DAY-ORD-LAX (for example) would be affected if the DAY-ORD leg was UA* on TranStates, but you can see how things could get messed up. I had hoped that this sort of problem was in the past, but I was disheartened to notice that US* point-to-point RJ nonstops from PIT to BDL, STL and RDU are clearly not shown in these Q3 status. They’re operated by TranStates (AX) which makes me wonder if any US* operated by them show, or if these don’t because they are at-risk flying. Anyway…this is something to be a bit wary of, especially if you’re working with these numbers in the smaller markets. It can help to use the “smell test”. If you’re looking at numbers from Montgomery…which only has DL* to ATL, US* to CLT and AA* to DFW…and Delta has 85% market share to places like Washington, New York, etc, that might not make sense. And if you see MGM-CLT is listed at 11 passengers per day and Delta has 81% market share even though US* flies MGM-CLT nonstop, that’s a clear sign US* isn’t being fully reported. 2. There’s a tendency, especially when you’re first playing with these numbers, to perhaps read too much into them. You see Louisville-Austin as 80 passengers per day and can’t figure out why someone can’t fly a nonstop CRJ in the market because that’s only 50 seats each way so it would be 80% full. Or even worse you think it’s 80 each way. The problem is that travelers stick with their preferred airline, or they want to fly at a different time than the nonstop goes, or there are 130 people on Mondays but only 30 on Tuesdays, or the 80 people are not paying fares high enough to cover the high CRJ cost. On the flip side people will sometimes pronounce doom on a new market because only X people fly between those two cities. That can be equally misguided because new nonstop flying sometimes serves a lot more passengers than the city pair previously reported – check out my explanation in the DEN-NRT thread if you care you on how that works. So bottom line…enjoy and learn from these numbers but avoid using them as gospel because you’ll be proven wrong plenty of times. Been there, done that!

Here is some annual (2012) numbers for both domestic and international O&D along with revenue.

Domestic
Rank / City / Pax(mil) / Revenue(mil) / Avg yield cents
1. NYC / 54.8 / $10,957 / 14.71
2. LA / 37.9 / $6,317 / 12.06
3. CHI / 32.2 / $6,232 / 16.64
4. LAS / 29.5 / $4,364 / 10.08
5. ORL / 26.8 / $3,901 / 11.00
6. DAL / 25.8 / $4,835 / 19.09
7. DEN / 25.4 / $3,872 / 12.32
8. SF / 25.1 / $4,795 / 12.43
9. ATL / 24.0 / $4,232 / 18.78
10. WAS / 22.2 / $4,434 / 16.99

International
Rank / City / Pax(mil) / Revenue(mil)
1. NYC / 32.6 / $20,357
2. LA / 15.6 / $11,292
3. MIA/ 14.2 / $6,348
4. SFO / 9.4 / $7,437
5. CHI / 6.8 / $4,816
6. WAS / 6.0 / $4,652
7. ORL / 5.4 / $2,253
7. BOS / 5.3 / $3,533
8. HNL / 4.9 / $5,491
9. LAS / 4.6 / $2,009
10. HOU / 4.2 / $3,763


=

BNA is about where it really should be considering it's metro size.

Quoting knope2001 (Reply 35):

Thanks for putting all this together.

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 37): Domestic Rank / City / Pax(mil) / Revenue(mil) / Avg yield cents 6. DAL / 25.8 / $4,835 / 19.09 8. SF / 25.1 / $4,795 / 12.43 10. WAS / 22.2 / $4,434 / 16.99

For a city that's not even in the Top 10 INTL list, not a major tourist destination, and has smaller population than both SF and WAS, it's very surprising to see DAL+DFW having higher O&D domestically than both of them

The previous list made a lot of sense because population base is very correlated with O&D, except major destinations like LAS or MCO. I'm really curious to see where this DAL O&D is coming from that can make it rank higher than SF or WAS.

I think it all has to do with definition of market.

knope2001 opted to use much broader census bureau CSA definitions. My data using DOT market definition which can split large metro areas with multiple airports into individual markets.

More specifically, for example, the DC area in my list excludes BWI. Same thing with other large metro areas like Bay Area, LA basin, and South Florida where separate individual markets are created when airports are split.

Oh, and my summary numbers also included Hawaii, Alaska and PR.

[Edited 2014-02-25 11:13:24]

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 41):

Thanks for compiling and posting -- interesting stuff!

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 37): International Rank / City / Pax(mil) / Revenue(mil) 1. NYC / 32.6 / $20,357 2. LA / 15.6 / $11,292 3. MIA/ 14.2 / $6,348 4. SFO / 9.4 / $7,437 5. CHI / 6.8 / $4,816 6. WAS / 6.0 / $4,652 7. ORL / 5.4 / $2,253 7. BOS / 5.3 / $3,533 8. HNL / 4.9 / $5,491 9. LAS / 4.6 / $2,009 10. HOU / 4.2 / $3,763

Do you have beyond the top 20?

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 41): knope2001 opted to use much broader census bureau CSA definitions. My data using DOT market definition which can split large metro areas with multiple airports into individual markets. More specifically, for example, the DC area in my list excludes BWI. Same thing with other large metro areas like Bay Area, LA basin, and South Florida where separate individual markets are created when airports are split.

So MIA and FLL are 2 markets from DOT's viewpoint ? No wonder domestically it's not even in the Top 10

Quoting LAXdude1023 (Reply 43): Do you have beyond the top 20?

Here you go.

International
Rank / City / Pax(mil) / Revenue(mil)
11. FLL / 3.5 / $1,824
12. ATL / 3.0 / $1,954
13. SEA / 2.7 / $1,986
14. DAL / 2.6 / $1,813
15. PHX / 2.2 / $1,024
16. PHL / 2.0 / $1,240
17. DTW / 1.9 / $1,221
18. DEN / 1.7 / $1,011
19. TPA / 1.6 / $803
20. SAN / 1.4 / $920

Quoting a380787 (Reply 44): So MIA and FLL are 2 markets from DOT's viewpoint ? No wonder domestically it's not even in the Top 10

Correct. Miami actually does not even make the top-20, Its in 27th spot for domestic O&D. FLL is significantly larger domestic O&D market.

Quoting LAXintl (Reply 45): 18. DEN / 1.7 / $1,011

Wow! DEN now ranks in the top 20 with internationals? Domestic very high is expected, and international here is kinda sorta not the best..... but they're in the top 20? The DEN managers have been having a big push for ex-boarder flights.... maybe this year they'll go up another spot or two and have some decent numbers to show..... at least 3%-4% of the traffic.... not something like it's been around 1.5%.....

 

Quoting point2point (Reply 46): Wow! DEN now ranks in the top 20 with internationals? Domestic very high is expected, and international here is kinda sorta not the best..... but they're in the top 20? The DEN managers have been having a big push for ex-boarder flights.... maybe this year they'll go up another spot or two and have some decent numbers to show..... at least 3%-4% of the traffic.... not something like it's been around 1.5%.....

Looks like DEN took a step back from 2011. There were closer to the 2.0 million mark.

Quoting LAXdude1023 (Reply 47): Looks like DEN took a step back from 2011. There were closer to the 2.0 million mark.

Really?

pfffff..... so much for DEN and international, eh?

I guess my numbers are off a couple of points (what I get for not at least using the calculator), but when these points are so low, being off what I am makes a major difference. So if they had about 2M in 2011 out of about 53M pax, that puts it around 3.75%. And now if they're 1.7M in 2012 out of some 53M, that puts them around 3.25%. Not as low as I thought, but still pretty low for such a huge volume airport. I guess DEN being smack dab in the middle of the U.S doesn't really help any with international destinations, but on the opposite end it's just about the ideal location for a domestic hub. I saw an aviation article somewhere a couple years back that ranked major airports per percentage of international traffic..... and DEN was actually on top of the list - they had more of a domestic flight percentage than any other major airport in the world - oh wait..... I guess that really makes them last here.......

pfffff.......

Anyways.... 2013 and onwards should be better years internationally, eh? FI has increased their frequencies, and the UA DEN-NRT flight is doing pretty well, so I guess the higher percentage of international flights to domestic ones should increase..... Maybe some frequencies to existing ex-boarder routes can be added, or even a new route or two will happen. However, I don't know if I want DEN to lose their #1 ranking here, eh?

  

 

Quoting point2point (Reply 48):

Meh, the numbers cycle. DFW has been between 2.5-3.1 million depending on the year, ATL has been between 2.8-3.4 depending on the year, and DEN has peaked around 2.2. Don't think DEN or any other is losing international prowess because the numbers are lower this year.