The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today reported in a release of preliminary data that U.S. airlines carried 68.4 million scheduled domestic and international passengers in July 2010. This is a 0.4 percent increase from July 2009. The July 2010 passenger total was 3.0 percent below that of two years ago in July 2008.

BTS, a part of DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration, also reported that U.S. airlines carried 0.6 percent fewer domestic passengers in July 2010 than in July 2009.  The number of international passengers on U.S. carriers in July 2010 increased 7.5 percent over July 2009. The July 2010 load factors of 86.9 percent systemwide, 86.9 percent domestic and 86.7 percent international were the highest recorded for any July.

Additional traffic numbers can be found on the BTS website in the Airline Industry box.  Click on a link in the column on the right. For more historic numbers, see Traffic on the BTS website.

For the first seven months of 2010, the number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines increased 1.1 percent from the same period in 2009 to 417.9 million. The number of passengers declined 7.2 percent from the first seven months of 2008 to the first seven months of 2010.

U.S. airlines carried 0.5 percent more domestic passengers and 4.9 percent more international passengers in the first seven months of 2010 than during the same period in 2009.

See BTS Air Traffic Release for summary tables and additional data.