Average Stage Length vs. Average Length of Flight

[tkdowell]

Hi everyone,

Doing a little school project and comparing AC's and WJ's CASM and Average Stage Length.

Interestingly, AC's jumps up significantly in 2014...

In fact, you can see how they change the reporting in the 2013 Annual Report and the 2014 Annual Report (where it shows the side-by-side of 2013). In 2013 Annual Report the 2013 "Average Length of Flight" is 837 miles, and in 2014 Annual Report the 2013 "Average Stage Length" is 1464. The latter they define underneath as ASMs / Seats Dispatched.

Any accountants out there able to get the "average length of flight" from the reported #s? Just so I can have apples-to-apples. I'm comparing to WJ and US Carriers who seem to use average length of flight.

Thanks in advance!

Tyler

[ogopogo]

Dude, you’re posting this on a forum which is populated (mostly) by pilots. They push the buttons, push the pedals, talk on the radio, set the parking brake and go home. Or to the hotel.

[AirSprint HR]

Hi everyone,

Doing a little school project and comparing AC's and WJ's CASM and Average Stage Length.

Interestingly, AC's jumps up significantly in 2014...

In fact, you can see how they change the reporting in the 2013 Annual Report and the 2014 Annual Report (where it shows the side-by-side of 2013). In 2013 Annual Report the 2013 "Average Length of Flight" is 837 miles, and in 2014 Annual Report the 2013 "Average Stage Length" is 1464. The latter they define underneath as ASMs / Seats Dispatched.

Any accountants out there able to get the "average length of flight" from the reported #s? Just so I can have apples-to-apples. I'm comparing to WJ and US Carriers who seem to use average length of flight.

Thanks in advance!

Tyler

I took a quick look at this. Yes, they changed the definition in 2014. My assumption is that due to their increased focus on larger aircraft they wanted to highlight that by adding more larger planes they were actually increasing the passenger carrying capacity by more than the average flight length (the bigger planes are worth more in the new calculation). I did some quick math and it seems to work out that way.

Comparing the numbers from the two 2013 amounts we know that for your purposes 837 = 1464. We also know that this increased 2.3% in 2014. Although definitely not perfect, you may be able to just increase 837 in 2013 by 2.3% for 2014 (=856), and then continue on with the applicable percentage increase moving forward. Looking through the statements I could find the number of annual flights (554,435) but after trying to back into the total number of miles flown a few different ways I realized that it was not my homework! You may be able to find total miles flown in 2014 in other reports on SEDAR. Sometimes an environmental report can get you there.

Hope this helped a bit...

James

[JBI]

Dude, you’re posting this on a forum which is populated (mostly) by pilots. They push the buttons, push the pedals, talk on the radio, set the parking brake and go home. Or to the hotel.

Don't sell yourself short. Lots of people on here with interests, skills and education beyond button pushing. Though pushing pedals?? isn't that what the rudder trim is for? For the record, the OP is also a pilot.

[digits_]

Dude, you’re posting this on a forum which is populated (mostly) by pilots. They push the buttons, push the pedals, talk on the radio, set the parking brake and go home. Or to the hotel.

Don't sell yourself short. Lots of people on here with interests, skills and education beyond button pushing. Though pushing pedals?? isn't that what the rudder trim is for? For the record, the OP is also a pilot.

I am always surprised when people promote ignorance. Like it is cool to not know anything except what you need for your job.

Somehow this seems to be fairly common amongst pilots.

Kudos to the op to look into things beyond just flying! I've learned something.

[fishface]

Wait, I thought pilots knew everything

[tkdowell]

Hey thanks everyone! I managed to reverse engineer it using the available seat miles, revenue guests, load factor and number of flights. Took me awhile to rack my head around it. Thanks James for pointing me in the right direction and everyone else for engaging. I’ll post the updated graph when I get my laptop connected to the internet. Cheers!

[Lt. Daniel Kaffee]

What is a revenue guest?

[TheRealPapaK]

Just speculation but ACA started transferring all it's E175's to Sky Regional. Effective removing all the shortest routes that ACA was flying. Might have something to do with it too

[tkdowell]

Just speculation but ACA started transferring all it's E175's to Sky Regional. Effective removing all the shortest routes that ACA was flying. Might have something to do with it too

I thought that too for the longest time but AC's ARs "operating statistics in this table [including average stage length] include third party carriers operating under Capacity Purchase Agreements with Air Canada".

[tkdowell]

Corrected graph:

[AirSprint HR]

Interesting, thanks for sharing.
James