Ok kids... let's define a few things here:
ASM - Available seat mile.
If I have a 10 seat airplane and I fly it 10 miles, then I have generated 100 ASM's.
RPM - Revenue Passenger Miles - If I sold 5 seats on the flight mentioned above, then I carried 5 passengers 10 miles, or 50 RPM's. "Revenue" in this acronym is only used to identify that there were paying customers, as opposed to employee travel (i.e. "non-rev"). There is no indication of how much they've paid.
Load factor can be obtained by dividing RPMs (traffic) by ASMs (capacity). In my example, the load factor is 50%. My example is easy to figure out because my airline has 10 seats and flies 5 passengers. Its harder to figure out by any method other than RPMs/ASMs for an airline the size of US Airways.
RASM - Revenue Per Available Seat Mile. Now here is an indication of how much cash I collected on my 10 mile flight. Lets say I charged each person $5. If I did, my revenue would have been $25. Since RASM is Revenue/Available seat miles, it would be $0.25
CASM - Cost Per Available Seat Mile. Works the exact same as RASM, except that you total the cost of the flight instead of the total revenue.
Yield - Yield is a measure of how much you can get each paying passenger to pay. It is determined by Revenue/RPMs, or in this case $25/50 = $0.50. So, I can get each passenger to pay $0.50/mile, but I was unable to fill all 10 seats, so RASM is $0.25, to account for the empty seats. An easy way to remember it is that RASM always includes the empty seats... Yield never includes the empty seats. If your load factor is 100%, RASM should = Yield.
Now, having said all that, there was no mention of anything other than ASM's RPM's and load factor in the Traffic Release... which is typical. Continental is the only airline to give an estimate of RASM with their traffic release... an increase of 9% to 10% reported for May 2005 vs May 2004. America West often reveals a "hint" without giving a specific number, as they did this month. Otherwise, most other major airlines make no mention of any indication of revenue trends... Thus CAL's number becomes an industry benchmark, only due to its availability.
Ok... Carry on now.
ASM - Available seat mile.
If I have a 10 seat airplane and I fly it 10 miles, then I have generated 100 ASM's.
RPM - Revenue Passenger Miles - If I sold 5 seats on the flight mentioned above, then I carried 5 passengers 10 miles, or 50 RPM's. "Revenue" in this acronym is only used to identify that there were paying customers, as opposed to employee travel (i.e. "non-rev"). There is no indication of how much they've paid.
Load factor can be obtained by dividing RPMs (traffic) by ASMs (capacity). In my example, the load factor is 50%. My example is easy to figure out because my airline has 10 seats and flies 5 passengers. Its harder to figure out by any method other than RPMs/ASMs for an airline the size of US Airways.
RASM - Revenue Per Available Seat Mile. Now here is an indication of how much cash I collected on my 10 mile flight. Lets say I charged each person $5. If I did, my revenue would have been $25. Since RASM is Revenue/Available seat miles, it would be $0.25
CASM - Cost Per Available Seat Mile. Works the exact same as RASM, except that you total the cost of the flight instead of the total revenue.
Yield - Yield is a measure of how much you can get each paying passenger to pay. It is determined by Revenue/RPMs, or in this case $25/50 = $0.50. So, I can get each passenger to pay $0.50/mile, but I was unable to fill all 10 seats, so RASM is $0.25, to account for the empty seats. An easy way to remember it is that RASM always includes the empty seats... Yield never includes the empty seats. If your load factor is 100%, RASM should = Yield.
Now, having said all that, there was no mention of anything other than ASM's RPM's and load factor in the Traffic Release... which is typical. Continental is the only airline to give an estimate of RASM with their traffic release... an increase of 9% to 10% reported for May 2005 vs May 2004. America West often reveals a "hint" without giving a specific number, as they did this month. Otherwise, most other major airlines make no mention of any indication of revenue trends... Thus CAL's number becomes an industry benchmark, only due to its availability.
Ok... Carry on now.
