Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - U.S. scheduled passenger airlines employed 6.7 percent fewer workers in December 2008 than in December 2007, the sixth consecutive decrease in full-time equivalent employee (FTE) levels for the scheduled passenger carriers from the same month of the previous year and the largest year-to-year decrease since December 2003, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported today. The December FTE total of 391,918 for the scheduled passenger carriers was the lowest total since 1993. FTE calculations count two part-time employees as one full-time employee.

All the network airlines decreased employment from December 2007 to December 2008 as did low-cost carriers AirTran Airways and Frontier Airlines. Regional carriers American Eagle Airlines, SkyWest Airlines, ExpressJet Airlines, Comair, Horizon Air, Mesa Airlines, Executive Airlines, and PSA Airlines also reported reduced employment levels compared to last year.

Scheduled passenger airlines include network, low-cost, regional and other airlines. Many regional carriers were not required to report employment numbers before 2004, so year-to-year comparisons involving regional carriers, or the total industry, are not available for the years before 2004.

The seven network carriers employed 264,744 FTEs in December, 67.6 percent of the passenger airline total, while low-cost carriers employed 16.0 percent and regional carriers employed 14.8 percent.

American Airlines employed the most FTEs in December among the network carriers, Southwest Airlines employed the most among low-cost carriers, and American Eagle employed the most among regional carriers. Seven of the top 10 employers in the industry are network carriers.

America West Airlines and US Airways now operate under a single certificate. Joint reporting began with October 2007 data. US Airways' employment numbers were included with the network airlines prior to October 2007 while America West's numbers were included with the low-cost airlines.

Beginning with October 2007, US Airways' numbers are combined with America West's numbers in the network category. The combined carrier's numbers were included in the low-cost category for October 2007 through February 2008 in the releases for those months. The numbers for those months have been revised beginning with the March 2008 release to include the combined carrier's numbers in the network category for all months. The revision was due to a BTS recalculation based on the airline's fourth quarter financial report released May 19, 2008.