May 2023 U.S. Airline Traffic Reaches New All-time High for the Month of May

U.S. airlines carried 81.8 million systemwide (domestic and international) scheduled service passengers in May 2023, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). When adjusted for seasonality, May enplanements are down 1.7% from April and down 5.5% from the all-time high reached in January 2020.

BTS reported 71.4 million domestic passengers and 10.4 million international passengers on U.S. airlines flights in May, not adjusting for seasonality. Systemwide enplanements (81.8M) reached a new all-time high for the month of May, not adjusted for seasonality.

U.S. airline traffic reports are filed monthly with BTS. See the tables that accompany this release on the BTS website for summary data since 2016 (Tables 1-24) and complete data since 2000.

Two measures of U.S. airlines passenger enplanements

May seasonally adjusted

• Systemwide enplanements (76.4M) were down 5.5% from the all-time high of 80.9 million reached in January 2020.
• Domestic enplanements (66.6M) were down 6.3% from the all-time high of 71.0 million reached in January 2020.
• International enplanements (9.88M) were down 1.4% from the all-time high of 10.01 million reached in April 2023.

May unadjusted

• Systemwide enplanements (81.8M) reached a new all-time high for the month of May.
• Domestic enplanements (71.4M) reached a new all-time high for the month of May.
• International enplanements (10.36M) reached a new all-time high for the month of May.

Table A. Seasonally Adjusted Passenger Enplanements Compared to Previous Time Periods

Table B. Unadjusted Passenger Enplanements Compared to Previous Time Periods