Operators of airports with limited ground facilities – runways and terminal size – are encouraging air carriers to use larger aircraft as a way to serve more passengers. The more passengers per flight, the fewer the takeoffs and landings required to handle the traffic.

To develop a statistic, we divided the number of passengers enplaned and deplaned in 2006 at several airports by the number of flight operations reported. We counted air carrier, commuter and air taxi operations. Not all airports separated these three passenger carrying categories from each other. Air carrier flights are on larger planes.

General aviation and non-passenger flights were disregarded.