Over 51 Million People Flying Domestically this Holiday Season

Each year, especially leading up to the month of December, people across the country frantically scour the internet for the best airplane tickets to make it home in time for the holidays. Many people want to visit with family and the 21-day Christmas travel season is when millions of Americans choose to do so. Some people choose to drive or take a bus or train, but each year, the number of fliers continues to rise. According to Hugo Martin's L.A. Times article, this season's number of fliers increased by 3.5% from the same measurement last year.

Analysts expect that there will be over 51 million people traveling via plane throughout the upcoming holiday season. Over the last four years, airplane travel has been growing, especially in the month of December, and especially during the few days leading up to and following Christmas. Research shows that the increasing prevalence of the mode of transportation is likely due to improvements in the economy and competition between airlines, which make flights more affordable for the common consumer.

The law of supply and demand states that supply and demand tend to be inversely proportional, which means that as the supply of a good or service increases, the demand for it decreases. The same concept applies to the proportionality of demand/price or the inverse proportionality of supply/price. In other words, the more consumers demand a product, the more a company can charge for it. Because there are so many companies that offer the service of airplane transportation, the competition drives the price down. As more and more consumers choose to fly because of the lower prices, however, those same prices will likely be driven back up until the price reaches an equilibrium.

Economic analysts predict that this trend will lead to a total of more than $16 billion in profit split among the various domestic carriers, 5% more than last year. Additionally, over the past three years, airlines throughout North America have earned over half of the profit in the industry as a whole. Analysts expect that things might change quickly if the airlines aren't careful. Between rising costs, taxes, and governmental security laws, the various airlines may have to quickly adapt to successfully meet growing demands and keep their competitive edge.

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New System to Alert Passengers via Mobile App if Luggage is Lost in Transit

Many people often need to travel often in this day and age. Technology has helped people to become more connected and some businesses even operate out of multiple countries at once. Therefore, people conducting business and people looking to visit friends and family will usually need to resort to flying to their destination. Because flying has become so mainstream and efficient, it's not unheard of for some individuals to board multiple flights per month. However, with all that popularity comes mistakes. Flights get overbooked, luggage gets lost, and the whole trip can be a frustrating experience. According to Hugo Martin's L.A. Times article, American Airlines is addressing one common issue: lost luggage, in the hopes of making the experience a little bit better for everyone.

Airports, especially those located in major cities, host many flights per day, with planes from dozens of different airlines. It's no surprise that luggage gets misplaced among so many thousands of travelers. The more frustrating part for many passengers is that they have to wait by baggage claim for every piece of luggage to exit the plane before they can definitively determine that their luggage is gone. Then, they have to go through the whole process and fill out paperwork so that when their belongings are found, they can be returned. People nowadays value efficiency and look to save time in every situation, so a big time-waster like that is not appreciated.

American Airlines is beginning to use a new system of scanning luggage at multiple checkpoints along the boarding and transport process, which keeps better track of everything. Additionally, all of the data is being uploaded to their system, and an alert gets sent out to a passenger if the system finds that their luggage was lost along the way. Because the passengers are getting a text message or app alert, they are able to immediately go to fill out the paperwork instead of first waiting for baggage claim, which can make an inherently stressful situation a little bit easier. In the coming years, lost luggage may be a thing of the past. New technology has been driving down the number of bags misplaced each year, and some research shows that use of RFIDs and other similar technology could lead to a 99% success rate on tracking bags, which could save millions of dollars in the long-run.

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LAX to Allow Select Passengers to Check-in Using Fingerprints or Iris Scans

In this day and age, partly due to continually advancing technological innovation, the ability to avoid time-wasting activities like waiting in lines has become a necessity for many consumers. People value their free time and want to save as much of it as possible for activities they enjoy. For example, when people fly in an airplane, whether for their job or on their way to a vacation, they don't enjoy how long it takes to make their way through security and check-in lines. Fortunately for many, according to Hugo Martin's L.A. Times article, passengers leaving from Los Angeles International Airport may soon have the option to speed through check-in using iris scans and/or their fingerprints.

Depending on the type of flight and time of year, it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours (or sometimes even more) for a passenger to get all the way through check-in and security before they are finally able to get to their boarding gate. For many people, especially the more affluent travelers and people who travel often for business, it can be worthwhile to pay a fee to get through security faster. Well, a company called Clear just installed new kiosks at LAX that allow passengers to use biometric markers to get through security. The service is membership based and costs $179 per year so it would be the best deal for frequent fliers.

Clear already has connections to 22 airports and 6 sports arenas around the country, so LAX is not their first foray into the world of biometrics. Accounts can be easily made at one of the kiosks by scanning a government-issued form of identification, answering some questions, and having one's iris and fingerprints scanned. After the short process to set up the account, check-in becomes faster and much more convenient. When using Clear to check-in, passengers get to interact with Clear employees (LAX has approximately 90 such individuals), bypassing most of the line and moving directly to the X-ray portion of security.

Clear may be one of the biggest presences in the field of biometric security, but other companies are beginning to get in on the industry, as it is likely to keep growing in the years to come. Jet Blue and Delta have begun using facial recognition and fingerprint scanning for the checking in of some of their premium passengers. Not only does scanning someone's fingerprints take much less time and is more convenient than classic methods, it can also be a more secure method. If biometric check-in were to become mainstream, wanted suspects would potentially be unable to get through security without raising an alarm, because their fingerprints and iris scans would be in the system.

However, that can also raise the question of privacy concerns. What will the companies do with all of that biometric information if this practice became mainstream? Would the police be able to get a subpoena for someone's fingerprint scans if they are a suspect in a crime? Many potential issues could arise from the integration of biometrics into security protocol, but many benefits are inherent as well. For now, it is only being used by a subset of passengers as a way to save time and make life more convenient. Everything else is too far in the future to know definitively now.

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Number of Airline Passengers Expected to Increase by 3.5% from Last Year's Holiday Season

The holidays are a time when many people travel across the country to visit their family and friends and celebrate. Because of that, it can always be expected that airlines will be very busy in December, almost as busy as during the summer months when people are traveling on vacation. This year especially, analysts expect overcrowding at airports to be at an all-time high. In fact, according to Hugo Martin's L.A. Times article, the number of holiday fliers is expected to increase this year by 3.5%.

In 2015, over 70 million people took US-based flights in the month of December. This year, it is expected that over 45 million people will be flying during the holiday season that makes up the 21 days starting on December 16th. According to a trade group called Airlines for America, the increase in demand will likely force airlines to either increase the number of people per flight or the number of flights per day. If they don't, they will be missing out on potential business and will be upsetting loyal customers, which could hurt their bottom line in the long-run.

Just as the increase in demand is affected by the upcoming holidays, so too is a notable decrease in the number of fliers on certain days. As can be expected, because people are flying in order to spend the holidays with loved ones, they won't want to fly on the holidays themselves. Therefore, it is predicted that the days with the least demand will be Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and their corresponding days. Similarly, in order to get to their destinations in time for the holidays with the least amount of missed time at work or school, it is expected that the largest number of people will choose to travel on December 22nd or December 23rd.

Airlines for America also released estimates regarding which airlines will likely be the most crowded on those days. The more populous the city, the more potential fliers it contains, so it makes sense that the airports with the largest number of passengers should be: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. So, if you're planning on flying for the holidays and you don't want to get caught up in the chaos that will be the most crowded year in recorded history, you should avoid those popular dates and locations at all costs.

Low airfare and an improving economy are the reasons that economists choose to explain the spike in demand for air travel. While demand usually increases anyway, simply because the population continuously increases, this year's significant boost is cause for a stir among airlines. They are doing everything they can to meet the demand, which includes a 3.9% increase in the number of airplane seats sold per day during the holiday season. Around 99,000 more passengers per day will be  added, and to do that, airlines will have to make many technical and operational changes. Will they be successful at keeping up with the higher number of passengers? It's doubtful, but they might pull it off. 

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