by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:10 AM ET, Wed July 24, 2019
A new airline study found the total consolidated dollar value of airline tickets sold in the first half of 2019 by United States-based travel agencies increased 3.38 percent.
In total, the airline tickets sold equaled $52.4 billion, an increase from the $50.7 billion registered during the same period in 2018, according to the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC).
The average U.S. round-trip ticket price in June 2019 increased to $512, up from an average cost of $502 in the same period last year. The total dollar value of airline tickets reached $7.9 billion, a 0.4 percent increase.
As for the overall industry, passenger trips settled by ARC for U.S. travel agencies in the first half of the year increased 2.4 percent to 162 million. For June, passenger trips also rose 1.2 percent to 24 million.
In addition, U.S. domestic trips rose 1.4 percent to 15 million, while international passenger trips rose 0.9 percent to 8.9 million. The trips handled by agencies that self-report as managing at least 70 percent corporate/government business also rose one percent.
In the first half of 2019, electronic miscellaneous document (EMD) sales, which cover ancillary services like seat upgrades, rose two percent to $44 million. On the other hand, EMD transactions fell 2.6 percent to 669,259.
For June, EMD sales reached $6.8 million, up 13.3 percent, while EMD transactions rose 14.9 percent to 113,897.
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