The July 16 letter from Carol B. Hallett of the Air Transport Association titled “No to Peotone” repeats an erroneous statement regarding the number of empty seats on aircraft leaving O’Hare International Airport.
Last winter, American and United Airlines informed the Illinois legislature that the number of empty seats on planes leaving O’Hare was 37 million. That was wrong because it implied a grossly incorrect load factor of less than 50 percent. Ms. Hallett now has lowered the number of empty seats to 35 million for flights that “left (both) Midway and O’Hare.” This number is still wrong; it is double what it should be. The ATA is forgetting to divide by two, a common error by those who confuse aircraft operations (arrivals plus departures) with aircraft departures.
Had the ATA used the correct statistics, it may have reached the conclusion of every study conducted since 1987–that Chicago airports are congested and will not be able to accommodate future travel demand. O’Hare had approximately 16 million empty seats on its departing aircraft in fiscal year 1995. O’Hare’s load factors (percent of seats occupied) are 6 percent higher than average U.S. load factors, which currently are at record highs. When load factors are this high, profits soar, prompting existing and new airlines to add service where possible.
Due to federally imposed limits at O’Hare, flights cannot be added, except late at night. Therefore, unless capacity is added elsewhere, prices will increase to restrain demand. This is already happening.
