U.S. airlines’ July 2022 fuel consumption down 9.5% from pre-pandemic 2019; aviation fuel cost per gallon drops 8.2% in July from June 2022 all time high

posted by AJOT | Sep 01 2022 at 12:00 PM | Air Cargo

The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released U.S. airlines’ July fuel cost and consumption numbers indicating U.S. scheduled service airlines used 1.52 billion gallons of fuel, 5.6% more fuel than in June 2022 (1.44B gallons) and 9.5% less than in pre-pandemic July 2019. The cost per gallon of fuel in July 2022 ($3.71) was down 33 cents (8.2%) from June 2022 ($4.04) and up $1.73 (87.4%) from July 2019. Total July 2022 fuel expenditure ($5.64B) was down 3.3% from June 2022 ($5.83B) and up 69.9% from pre-pandemic July 2019.

At $4.04, the cost per gallon of fuel in June was the highest since May 2022 $3.90. Year-over-year increases in fuel consumption and cost for July include 2.9% in domestic fuel consumption, 90.0% in domestic fuel cost, and 84.9% in cost per gallon. Domestic fuel consumption increased 5.6% from June to July in 2022, but deceased 7.0% from July 2019. Increased fuel consumption reflects an increase in airline passenger travel over the same period.