23  Load factor – passengers

23.1 EUROCONTROL recommended values

The load factor represents the percentage of seats filled by fare paying passengers on a flight.

Table 23.1 shows the estimated passenger load factor according to EUROCONTROL STATFOR values. These values were obtained by dividing the total number of passengers by the total number of available seats on the flights. This information is based on the data produced by Eurostat and covers the EU27+UK, and four EFTA states.¹

Table 23.1:

Passenger load factor – EUROCONTROL values

Year	Load factor
2017	82.60%
2018	82.60%
2019	83.30%
2020	59.40%
2021	65.30%
Source: EUROCONTROL STATFOR Interactive Dashboard (PAX+)

Table 23.2 presents the evolution in the passenger load factor according to IATA data. These values represent the ratio of revenue passenger km to available seat km. The difference from values in Table 1 is the geographical coverage: IATA’s Europe area is larger than EU Europe statistical area, it also covers countries such as Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Table 23.2:

Passenger load factor – IATA values

Year	Load factor1
2017	83.90%
2018	84.50%
2019	85.20%
2020	67.80%
2021	74.50%
2022	83.60%
Source: IATA – Economics, Air Passenger Market Analysis for December 2017-2022. Available at IATA - Economics
1 The values used in this table come from IATA monthly Air Passenger Market Analysis reports for the month of December of each year. The data is extracted from the table “Air passenger market detail”, looking at Total market in Europe, column PLF(level) for calendar year.

A wide range of economic reports from IATA can be accessed on IATA website

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1. European Free Trade Association: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland