While U.S. airlines have been losing money over the past several quarters they are going better than during the 2001-02 period. As you can see from the past few slides U.S. airlines have become more efficient operators in recent years. This has helped them limit their losses during the current recession. However, despite the efficiency gains (for example, higher load factors, and increased passenger miles per gallon of fuel) U.S. airlines are still not profitable.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, F41 Schedule P12
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Another example of how U.S. airlines have increase their operating efficiency in recent years is revenue passenger-miles per gallon of fuel. As you can see from the above chart revenue passenger-miles per gallon have increased significantly in recent years.
Data source
U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, T-100
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The above chart shows a historical view of the load factor for all U.S. airlines. Load factor is calculated as passenger-miles as a proportion of available seat-miles and shown as a percentage. As you can see U.S. airlines have been doing a good job of increasing their load factors in recent years. Even in the current recession (with declining passenger miles) U.S. airlines are managing load factors well. Load factor is a primary measure of operating efficiency in the airline industry.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics T-100
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The above chart shows the top 10 U.S. airports based on Jan-Apr 2009 enplaned passengers. It also compares these numbers with the 2008 figures for the same period. As you can see most of the top 10 U.S. airports have seen dramatic declines in passengers in 2009 from last year.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, T-100
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The above chart shows the top 10 U.S. airlines by system scheduled enplaned passengers for April 2009. It also shows April 2008 numbers for comparison. As you can see most major airlines have seen substantable declines in passengers in April 2009 compared to last year.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, T-100.
Note: System scheduled enplanements includes domestic and international.
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U.S. Capacity Utilization for the motor vehicle and parts industry hit a record low of 37.3% in June 2009. In many ways this chart sums up what is happening in the U.S. auto industry. Just over a third of the industrial capacity in the U.S. motor vechile and parts industry was being utilized last month.
Data source:
U.S. Federal Reserve
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The above chart shows a historical view of the average expenditure per domestic and foreign car in the U.S. Americans are willing to pay substantially more for a foreign car. However, the gap between what is paid for a domestic car vs. a foreign car has been declining in that past few years.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
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The above charts shows the average length of new car loans made by auto finance companies in the U.S. It now takes about 1 1/2 years longer to pay off a car loan than in the early 80’s, and about 2 1/2 years longer than in the early 70’s.
Data source:
U.S. Federal Reserve, G. 19 Consumer Credit
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The above chart takes data on total U.S. vehicle sales and splits it out between autos and trucks. What is very interesting is how the increase in truck sales since the early 1980’s can be seen as an analogy for the over-consumption of the past few decades. Truck sales look very similar to the debt chart (chart #2) and an inverse of the personal savings chart (chart #3) shown in this article: http://chartingtheeconomy.com/?page_id=56. Sales of bigger, less fuel efficient, often more expensive vehicles soared while auto sales were flat (to slightly down) since the early 80’s.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
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The above chart shows the unemployment rate by state for June 2009. The 15 states with an unemployment rate above 10% are shown in red. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 15.2%. Remember this is the offical unemployment data which understates the real unemployment picture. For example, the offical unemployment numbers don’t include individuals that the government believes have dropped out of the labor force (even if they still want a job), or persons working part time for economic reasons (the only type of work they can find). Most data I have seen on a national level would lead me to believe that an official unemployment rate between 10%-15% really means that at least 20% of the labor force is either unemployed or underemployed.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
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This week the Federal Reserve reported that capacity utilization for U.S. industry hit another record low of 68% in June. The Fed’s capacity untilization calcuation is based on the percentage of total U.S. industrial capacity being utilized. This report means that there is more excess industrial capacity (as a percentage of the total) in the U.S. than at anytime on record.
Capacity Utilization is considered a leading indicator of inflation and future capital spending. This record low reading is an indicator that there is little inflationary pressure in the U.S. economy (at least now - I’m concerned about the effects of U.S. deficit spending on long-term inflation). This record amount of spare capacity also indicates that industry has little need to spend capital to increase production (even if demand picks up significantly).
Data source:
U.S. Federal Reserve
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Recently, a reader asked if I had any data on per capita income by state.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. http://www.bea.gov/regional/spi/default.cfm?selTable=summary
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The above chart provides a historical view of U.S. vehicle sales. The data is seasonally adjusted at an annual rate. From November 2008 to May 2009, U.S. vehicle sales have been averaging about 10 million units at an annual rate. This is less than half the recent peak reached in 2005.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
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The above chart shows that U.S. auto inventories in May 2009 improved from their recent record highs. However, auto inventories continue to be at a very elevated level.
Data source:
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Note: This data does not include truck sales.
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The above chart gives a histocial view of the major currencies dollar index. The Federal Reserve defines the major currencies index as “a weighted average of the foreign exchange values of the U.S. dollar against a subset of currencies in the broad index that circulate widely outside the country of issue.” Basically, it shows the strength of the U.S. dollar against a basket of major currencies (lower index numbers indicate a weaker dollar).
Data source:
U.S. Federal Reserve report H.10 Foreign Exchange Rates (summary measures)
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