# Seat load factor on selected flight routes

A map of a former edition of the Atlas of Switzerland, the national atlas published by ETH Zurich. It opens only in the desktop atlas (version 4) for Windows and macOS, not in the web atlas; see the links below.

- Map: https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/seat-load-factor-on-selected-flight-routes/
- Short title: Seat load factor
- Map id: 301
- Categories: Global Switzerland › Traffic and Communication › Air traffic
- Keywords: Air traffic, Transport
- Published: 2017-09-19
- Last revised: 2022-12-07
- Content language: English
- Other languages: [Deutsch](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/de/thema/sitzplatzauslastung-ausgewaehlter-flugstrecken.md), [Français](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/fr/theme/taux-doccupation-des-sieges-sur-routes-selectionnees.md), [Italiano](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/it/tema/tasso-di-occupazione-dei-posti-a-sedere-sulle-tratte-selezionate.md)

## Description

In global and European aviation, strong cost pressure has been evident since the 1990s due to rising fuel costs and competition among airlines. The mean flight prices or airline earnings per purchased passenger kilometre have thus continued to decline considerably. Airlines, particularly the airline alliances, such as StarAlliance (Lufthansa, Swiss etc.), have had to make great efforts to reduce costs. This was achieved, on the one hand, through increasing passenger capacity by using larger planes with more seats that are more densely placed. At the same time, there was a disproportionate growth in long-distance transport, which is generally handled by larger aircraft. On the other hand, increased capacity also saw an increase in seat load factors.

*Flight occupancy*
This development led to a considerable increase in flight occupancy (passengers per flight), which has been evident across almost all of Europe since 2004. For flights from Zurich, this value was 122 people per flight in 2016, which is an increase of 63% compared to 2004. Although the values fluctuate over the course of the year, they generally continue to increase: in April 2017, Zürich Airport recorded a mean occupancy of 128.5 people per flight (11.3% higher than in the previous year), which increased to 135.5 flight guests (5.5% higher than the previous year’s figure) in the holiday month July.

*Seat load factor*
The seat load factor refers to the percentage of occupied seats out of all available seats. The higher this factor, the more profitable for the airline’s operation. Seat load factors are typically around 10% higher for intercontinental flights than for short-haul flights. In April 2017, Zürich Airport recorded an average seat load factor of 80% on all passenger flights and a factor of 83% in the holiday month July.

## Sources

- INFRAS (2006): Volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Luftfahrt in der Schweiz. Zürich
- Flughafen Zürich (2017): Statistikbericht 2016

## Data sources

- Atlas of Switzerland (2021): [Fluglinien](http://www.atlasderschweiz.ch/)
- FOCA (2021): Standard Zeitreiheauswertung für die Jahren 2000 bis 2020
- Patokallio (2014): [OpenFlights](http://openflights.org/)
- Wikipedia contributors (2017): [List of busiest airports by passenger traffic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic). In: Wikipedia

## Data owners

- [Atlas of Switzerland (AoS)](http://www.atlasderschweiz.ch/)
- [Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA)](http://www.bazl.admin.ch)
- [Great Circle Mapper](http://www.gcmap.com/)
- [OpenFlights](http://openflights.org/)

## Citation

The terms of use ask to name the Atlas of Switzerland and the data owners, and to keep the source references in exports, screenshots and embeds. Cite the map as:

> Atlas of Switzerland (2022): Seat load factor on selected flight routes. ETH Zürich. Map data © AoS, FOCA, Great Circle Mapper, OpenFlights. https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/seat-load-factor-on-selected-flight-routes/

## Links

- Map page, with the description and sources and a button that opens the map in the desktop atlas: https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/seat-load-factor-on-selected-flight-routes/
- Open the map in the desktop atlas (version 4), where it is installed: adsglobe://map/301
- Download of the desktop atlas (version 4) for Windows and macOS: https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/ads4-download/

## Related maps

- [Charter flights: passengers on international flight routes](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/charter-flights-passengers-on-international-flight-routes.md) (id 511, former edition, desktop atlas only)
- [Scheduled flights: passengers transported on international flight routes](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/scheduled-flights-passengers-transported-on-international-flight-routes.md) (id 509, former edition, desktop atlas only)
- [Air freight on international flight routes](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/air-freight-on-international-flight-routes.md) (id 515, former edition, desktop atlas only)
- [Airmail transported on international flight routes](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/airmail-transported-on-international-flight-routes.md) (id 514, former edition, desktop atlas only)
- [Flight movements on international routes](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/theme/flight-movements-on-international-routes.md) (id 512, former edition, desktop atlas only)

For the use and citation of maps and data, see the [terms of use](https://atlasderschweiz.ch/en/terms-of-use/).