What is Load Factor in Aviation Terms?

Filling up a plane is no mean feat. It becomes even more complicated and difficult when you have to repeat it day in and day out on a large scale of flights and planes. However doing so is key to achieving financial success and overall having a financially viable operation. But which is the key performance indicator for airlines on how their planes are filled? That’s where load factor comes into play.

What is Load Factor in Aviation?

Load factor simply put is the value airlines use to measure how full a plane is. You can calculate it by dividing the available seats on a plane by the number of passengers transported. For instance if your plane has a capacity of 100 passengers and you sell 70 tickets that means that your load factor for the flight is 70%. The fuller the plane, the higher the load factor.

In turn if you fill your plane more you are more likely to make more money on your flight. If you don’t fill it enough you might not even reach your breakeven point and might lose money. Exactly where that breakeven point is depends from flight to flight and furthermore from airline to airline.

As a rule of thumb airlines that are particularly premium cabin heavy on their planes will need lower load factors in order to breakeven. Low cost airlines on the other hand will need to fill their planes much more to make money.

How Do Load Factors Vary Among Various Airlines?

As mentioned above, what can be a very decent and acceptable load factor for one airline might not be for another. The main distinction in terms of load factors is to be made between LCCs (low cost carriers) and full service carriers. Budget airlines can rely on only one travel class meaning they consistently have to reach higher load factors. Therefore it is quite common to refer to a normal load factor for an LCC to be around or above 90%. So if you are hoping to have an empty seat next to you when flying such carriers think again.

For full service airlines, on the other hand, an acceptable load factor will be anywhere in between 70% and 80%. With figures closer or above 80% being associated to better performing carriers. Why can full service airlines have lower factors? They have premium cabins. Just keep in mind that generally, just by filling the premium cabin seats an airline is already making money. However those premium seats come with quite a higher price tag making them harder to sell and fill.