This article is published in Aviation Week & Space Technology and is free to read until May 08, 2025. If you want to read more articles from this publication, please click the link to subscribe.
With MRO Americas in Atlanta imminent, this week’s Flight Friday looks at the big three U.S. legacy carriers American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.
The combined utilization (cycles) for the big three U.S. operators at the start of 2025 is around 10% greater than equivalent months back in 2019, however not all operators’ utilization is equal.
For total main line utilization in 2019, American Airlines accounted for over 36% of all flights. Since 2019, American has grown its fleet by 7% to around 990 aircraft. However, American utilization is only just above equivalent 2019 utilization at the start of 2025 but was 10% higher during parts of 2024. As a result, American have lost a small amount of utilization “market share” and now accounts for just 35% of all flights for the first few months of 2025.
Delta back in 2019 accounted for over 37% of all combined flights between the big three. Fast forward to 2025 and—even with an increased fleet size of almost 8% to around 970 aircraft, and even though Delta is flying 5% more flights in 2025 compared to 2019—Delta’s utilization “market share” has dropped down below 35%.
United has made the most ground. Back in 2019, United had the smallest fleet of the three, below 800. However, an aggressive fleet expansion to over 1,000 aircraft has created a significant change in the composition of its utilization. United is up 30% when compared to equivalent number of flights back in 2019, which has also led to United gaining in utilization “market share” from 26% in 2019 to 30% in 2025.
While 2025 has started a little rocky, with all three making statements cutting their outlook for 2025, we shall wait to see what happens for the remainder of the year.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization database.
Related Content
