Cost per ASM

[bigbeerbelly]

Our airline like almost every other is out to attack the employees for concessions. The push to cut costs is propagated by the need to renew our contract with UAL, only now the door is open for every bottom feeder in the industry to put in a bid for flying. The end result is compete one airline against each other until the lowest cost carrier wins. This has brought about much disscussion in the crew lounge regarding Cost per Available Seat Mile (CASM). I have read the Annual reports and seen that ours has fluctuated year over year from 12 to 18 cents. Does anyone know what the formula is to calculate CASM? Thanks in advance :confused:

BBB

[brabazon]

Quite straightforward, if you can find the numbers, its the total operating costs for the airline divided by the total aircraft seat miles (ASM) that the airline produced or flew. Its only really useful as a comparison measure if you're comparing similar sized airlines as it can be skewed by airlines with a lot of long haul/wide-body flying - ie that gives a larger ASM figure.

[easyflyer]

Actually pretty easy to get the numbers...try www.aea.be for ASMs (or in Europe more usually ASKs), and website investor relations sections for annual report, which will have cost breakdowns (although where airlines have "other" operations (e.g. Lufthansa) be sure to only take costs relating to pax and cargo flying.)

In the US, ASM data from airtransport.org I think.