TSA Numbers
#691
Line Holder
Joined APC: Sep 2020
Posts: 39
Thank you for the clarification. Your statement only made reference to international travelers, without specifically referencing foreign carriers thus causing the uncertainty.
TSA numbers don't discriminate between carriers - they might be getting on United or they might be getting on British Airways. Without breaking down the TSA numbers by checkpoint (which the publicly facing page does not do), it seems reasonable to assume that the TSA numbers include foreign carriers.
The TSA numbers also aren't specific to passengers - they are screening counts. The TSA has confirmed that includes crew and others in addition to passengers. For the purposes of gauging the recovery outside of revenue/seat miles/etc., I'm not sure that's an important distinction.
TSA numbers don't discriminate between carriers - they might be getting on United or they might be getting on British Airways. Without breaking down the TSA numbers by checkpoint (which the publicly facing page does not do), it seems reasonable to assume that the TSA numbers include foreign carriers.
The TSA numbers also aren't specific to passengers - they are screening counts. The TSA has confirmed that includes crew and others in addition to passengers. For the purposes of gauging the recovery outside of revenue/seat miles/etc., I'm not sure that's an important distinction.
The number of passengers carried by foreign carriers does not elucidate the health of the US Airline industry - which we are ultimately trying to estimate.
The current TSA Passenger counts for foreign carriers can for forced to take the value of zero in our comparison (for now) as on average they carried less than 10 thousand passengers per day in total (across all Foreign Carriers) for the last three months. Foreign carrier travel accounts for less than 2% of the total passengers in the most recent month for which we have data.
So we are left with the following -> TSA numbers that US Carriers carry is 98% of the total now versus 88% in 2018 and 2019.
Without a full data set, which we don't have - I still think comparing U.S. Carrier Data year-over-year along with the TSA numbers is the best gauge, rather than muddying the water with Foreign Carries that existed as a big component in the past years but are negligible this year.
I also think that most people care more about U.S. Carrier health. Even if Foreign Carriers go to zero, if the U.S. Carriers can recoup all the passenger numbers, that is the most important aspect we are all here for.
Again, all of the above is my opinion.
Cheers,
AirlineAnalyst
#692
I'd agree that TSA data - at least the publicly posted stuff - isn't the best source for U.S. carrier health. As you point out, that requires additional data. That's also not the subject of this thread, which is titled "TSA Numbers"...
Last edited by bradthepilot; 09-22-2020 at 12:21 PM.
#693
Line Holder
Joined APC: Sep 2020
Posts: 39
Your assumption, above, is not correct. I'm not gauging U.S. carriers, I'm interested in passenger activity in total.
I'd agree that TSA data - at least the publicly posted stuff - isn't the best source for U.S. carrier health. As you point out, that requires additional data. That's also not the subject of this thread, which is titled "TSA Numbers"...
I'd agree that TSA data - at least the publicly posted stuff - isn't the best source for U.S. carrier health. As you point out, that requires additional data. That's also not the subject of this thread, which is titled "TSA Numbers"...
I use them to gauge US Carrier Health and how close we are to 2019 (and 2018, 2017, 2016) activity.
You can use them to gauge total Foreign and US Carrier passenger activity.
Cheers,
AirlineAnalyst
#696
#697
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2016
Posts: 303
and third straight day our %wow of last year was up 1.0% or more. Aug growth was about half that. So not only are we still growing - we are doing it a better rate.
#699
Very rough projection. If 1.0% WoW increase relative to last year, and at 30% today, in 50 weeks (say a year) PAX loads would be 80% of 2019s. Hmmmm....food for thought.
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