Domestic Airfare Consumer Report details:

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Aviation Analysis publishes the Domestic Airfare Consumer Report every quarter using data submitted to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics by commercial airlines. The primary purpose of this report is to provide the traveling public with quarterly information for domestic airline prices and to identify market trends. The city market airfare and passenger data is provided in seven different table formats described in detail below. Pricing information is available for nearly 7,000 domestic city-pair markets across the 48 contiguous states.  

The average fares in this report reflect the each-way prices paid by all passengers on domestic commercial airlines. These averages include first-class tickets, taxes, and airport fees. However, they exclude free tickets, such as frequent flyer rewards, as well as ancillary charges such as baggage, seat upgrades, and change fees. 

Because airline prices fluctuate constantly, these reported averages likely won't match current ticket prices. However, they remain useful for comparing costs between airlines and different city markets. Note that in markets with high average fares, cheaper fares are usually limited and heavily restricted, meaning travelers must search harder to find a bargain. 

Table Descriptions & Data Details

Table 1 of this report covers the 1,000 largest city-pair markets in the 48 contiguous states. For each of the 1,000 largest city-pair markets, Table 1 lists the number of each-way passenger trips per day, the nonstop distance, the average market fare, and identifies the airlines with the largest market share and the lowest average fare; market share and average fares are provided for both airlines. 

To assist consumers in making average fare comparisons, Table 1 segregates markets by mileage block, since distance is a major factor that affects the level of prices charged. Markets are then sorted within each mileage block by fare amount, from the highest average fare to the lowest. Consumers should understand that because carriers tend to offer a variety of prices in a market, carriers with higher average prices might offer some seats at prices as low as, or even lower than, carriers with much lower average prices.

The information contained in Table 1 reveals that in many markets the average fares vary from carrier-to-carrier. In some instances, this reflects differences in service, such as connecting versus nonstop service, or service to different airports in the same city market. Note that the “lowest fare carrier” is the carrier with the lowest average fare that has at least a 10 percent share of the traffic in the market, except for markets where only a single carrier has a 10 percent or greater share. In such markets the carrier with the lowest average fare is identified even if its market share is less than 10 percent. In some markets the “market average” fare will be lower than the fare for the “lowest fare carrier” because several carriers that do not individually account for a 10 percent share can collectively account for a significant share. Often, they charge lower average fares than individual carriers with greater market participation.

Table 1a, too large to include in this report, is available exclusively in the DOT DataHub (Table 1a DataHub). Table 1a is an expanded version of Table 1 – which lists only the top 1,000 largest city-pair markets – that breaks down markets by specific airport-pairs averaging at least 10 passengers daily. It provides airport-pair market information for cities that have multiple airports at either the origin or destination of the trip, such as Chicago's O'Hare (ORD) and Midway (MDW). 

Table 2 summarizes the data by city. This table provides a city-level summary of the top 1,000 city-pair markets, restricted to cities with more than 100,000 passengers. Sorted by distance, the table's columns display the number of top markets associated with each city, total inbound and outbound passengers, average fare, average fare per mile (yield), and average distance traveled.

Tables 3 and 4 highlight markets with significant year-over-year changes in average fares. Table 3 shows markets with large fare increases, while Table 4 details those with large decreases. Both tables provide each market's average fare and total passenger count, along with the absolute and percentage changes for both metrics.

Table 5 provides detailed fare information for short-haul, high-fare markets. For a more complete explanation, please read the introductory information at the beginning of Table 5 in this report.

Table 6 is an expanded version of Table 1, detailing all city-pair markets that averaged at least 10 daily passengers during the quarter.  As it is too large to include in this report, it is available exclusively online. You can access clicking the link for Table 6 DataHub.

Table 7 details the average fare premiums for airports, based on data from all city-pair markets averaging more than 20 daily passengers that serve each airport. The table illustrates the impact of hub domination and low-fare service by calculating a passenger-weighted average price for a city-pairs servicing a specific airport and benchmarking it against the national average for all other domestic city-pairs. To provide deeper context, the table tracks the % Fare Premium (the percentage difference between the local airport's city-pair market fares and a calculated national benchmark of all other city-pairs) and the share of Passengers in Low-Fare Markets (the percentage of travelers flying on routes with active low-cost carrier competition).