Big 3 in a Revenue Dogfight With Smaller Airlines

A new study analyzing how much revenue was generated per passenger on public airlines in the United States last year reveals that carriers are fiscally doing just fine despite a recent string of negative publicity.

According to a report from Craft.co, United Airlines topped the revenue list by earning $256 per passenger, followed by Hawaiian, Delta and American Airlines, which all generated over $200 per passenger.

Low-cost carriers and regional airline groups like Allegiant, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and SkyWest had lower revenue than the bigger carriers, with SkyWest generating only $58 per passenger.

"Looking at these metrics we gained company insights that we would have not derived from purely financial analysis. For instance, United is performing surprisingly well, earning most revenue for its passengers," Craft founder and CEO Ilya Levtov said in a statement to TravelPulse.

"Further, Hawaiian Holdings, albeit only being the 8th largest commercial carrier in terms of revenue in our ranking, topped the ranks in revenue per aircraft and revenue per daily flight. This means Hawaiian is getting more revenue out of each aircraft and daily flight than most of the other US carriers. Our report also showcased the poor performance of SkyWest, which despite earning more revenue than Hawaiian in 2016, earned less revenue per KPI than most of the carriers."

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Craft.co also analyzed revenue earned per aircraft in 2016, with Hawaiian ranked highest, earning around $46.3 million per aircraft operated. United finished second on the list with $29.7 million and Southwest Airlines ranked third with $28.2 million.

In addition, the analytics company also broke down revenue per destination numbers, with Southwest Airlines recording almost $202 million, followed by major airlines Delta, American, and United, earning $123 million, $115 million and $108 million, respectively.

Overall, the lesson to be learned is that airlines in the United States are still making plenty of money.

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