The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released U.S. airlines’ October fuel cost and consumption numbers indicating U.S. scheduled service airlines used 1.433 billion gallons of fuel, 2.3% more fuel than in September 2022 (1.401 billion gallons) and 7.0% less than in pre-pandemic October 2019. The cost per gallon of fuel in October 2022 ($3.45) was down 4 cents (1.2%) from September 2022 ($3.49) and up $1.48 (75.1%) from October 2019. Total October 2022 fuel expenditure ($4.95B) was up 1.2% from September 2022 ($4.89B) and up 62.9% from pre-pandemic October 2019.
Year-over-year increases in fuel consumption and cost for October include 5.6% in domestic fuel consumption, 64.2% in domestic fuel cost, and 55.5% in cost per gallon. Domestic fuel consumption increased 3.6% from September to October in 2022, while also decreasing 5.2% from October 2019. Increased fuel consumption reflects an increase in airline passenger travel over the same period.
