For many travelers, having an empty row — or at least an empty seat next to them — is a rare luxury.
As airlines maximize capacity, finding extra space has become more difficult, but certain routes and carriers consistently operate with more empty seats than others.
Luxury Link analyzed all U.S. flights over a 12-month period to find the airlines and flight routes with the most empty seats — where passengers are most likely to end up with a whole row to themselves.
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Major Takeaways From the Analysis, With Data for AVL Airport
- Nearly 20% of airline seats go unfilled: Across all flight routes, almost 1 out of every 5 seats was empty, on average, over the past 12 months.
- Shorter flights tend to have more empty seats: Of the top 100 flight segments in the U.S. with the most vacant seats, all but three are under 1,000 miles, and 78 are under 500 miles.
- Budget airlines tend to have more empty seats than major carriers: Low-cost carriers like Avelo Airlines, Breeze Airways, and Frontier Airlines average the most empty seats per flight—26.7%, 25.2%, and 24.4%, respectively. Meanwhile, Delta, United, and American have the fewest at 14.5%, 15.9%, and 16.4%, respectively.
- Empty seats on flights to/from AVL: On average, 21.4% of seats on flights in and out of AVL are empty—more than the national average of 18.9%.
For a complete summary of the data, check out the full report here: https://www.luxurylink.com/blog/flight-routes-where-you-are-most-likely-to-have-the-row-to-yourself/.
Written by Lattice Publishing.