Transportation
U.S. domestic airline passengers
United States / 2026
HHIWithheldCR469.0%Top share17.8%EvidenceIncompletehigh confidence
Competition issue dossier
Transportation networks
How do route-level entry, capacity, airport constraints, and consolidation shape passenger choice beyond national shares?
The program places national airline passenger-share reporting beside route-level research needs and official merger and competition records.
Bounded markets1
Evidence routes23
Official records2
Source custody4
Updated through2026-07-17
Interpretation boundaryIssue program, not market definition
The current national passenger-share table includes an aggregate Other category, so HHI is withheld. National shares also do not replace route-pair, airport, or traveler-segment analysis.
Use standard01 / Bounded market screens
Keep each measure inside its declared universe.
1 market profile remains separate inside this issue program. Census rows are navigation context, not substitutes.
Census navigation context1 declared six-digit screen
02 / Research program
Turn the issue frame into testable evidence requests.
Program questions are editorial research designs. Canonical dossiers appear only where the observatory has a definition-stable latest-to-prior signal.
Program questions
- 01
Which route-pair, airport, schedule, fare, capacity, and entry records define competitive alternatives for travelers?
- 02
How do slot, gate, loyalty, and network constraints differ across airports and traveler segments?
- 03
Which before-and-after records can evaluate transactions or remedies without attributing every observed change to one event?
Observed change
0Canonical signal questions
No canonical change question yet.
Open agenda The current evidence does not contain a definition-stable latest-to-prior signal for this market. The gap remains explicit.
03 / Participants and attribution
Separate source labels from operator evidence.
Participant shares apply only to their source, year, and market. Operator links rely on separate official attribution records and do not establish a complete ownership graph.
Measured rows
10Source-labeled participants
Delta Air LinesFirm / 1 market17.8%American AirlinesFirm / 1 market17.5%Southwest AirlinesFirm / 1 market17.0%United AirlinesFirm / 1 market16.7%Alaska AirlinesFirm / 1 market6.3%JetBlue AirwaysFirm / 1 market4.5%Frontier AirlinesFirm / 1 market3.7%Spirit AirlinesFirm / 1 market3.3%SkyWest AirlinesFirm / 1 market2.6%Hawaiian AirlinesFirm / 1 market1.6%
1 aggregate or residual category is excluded from the firm count and retained in the public packet.
Separate evidence
0Official operator attributions
No encoded operator attribution.
Market context alone is not enough to assert an operator, owner, or corporate family.
04 / Official record
Read chronology and named organizations as separate evidence.
2 dated records and 2 exact organization labels; no liability or causal inference is added.
U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Transportation / Investigation
DOJ and DOT launch broad inquiry into competition in air travel
The agencies requested public information on consolidation, airport access, exclusionary conduct, ticket sales, pricing, rewards programs, labor, and other competition conditions in air travel.Open recordU.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts / Decision
Court blocks JetBlue's proposed acquisition of Spirit Airlines
The district court blocked JetBlue's proposed acquisition of Spirit after a DOJ and state challenge under Section 7 of the Clayton Act.Open recordExact labels
2Named organizations
05 / Public work
Current dispatches and full reports with exact issue links.
Current analytical dispatches0
No current dispatch resolves to an issue market.
Open insights The current insight series has no signal whose canonical entity route exactly matches this program's declared market routes. The gap is explicit.
Full research reports2
Jul 19, 2026The U.S. Competition Landscape
A source-backed state-of-competition briefing across markets, industries, state systems, local banking screens, mergers, and enforcement, with every system kept in its own analytical universe.
May 16, 2026Where Public Market-Share Data Runs OutA transparency note on incomplete data and why the observatory never fills gaps with invented shares.
06 / Evidence custody
Sources carried by exact issue routes.
01
U.S. Census Bureau / accessed 2026-07-172022 Economic Census Concentration of Largest Firms
02public dataset
U.S. Department of Justice / accessed 2026-07-17Justice Department Statements on Decision to Block JetBlue's Acquisition of Spirit Airlines
03agency report
U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Transportation / accessed 2026-07-17Justice Department and Department of Transportation Launch Broad Public Inquiry into Air Travel Competition
04agency report
Bureau of Transportation Statistics / accessed 2026-05-16TranStats airline domestic market share March 2025-February 2026
public dataset