The world's largest airline had been Aeroflot, the national airline of the former USSR. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union it broke up into a number of state and privately owned airlines of the new republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The U.S. airlines, owing to their large domestic market, dominate any ranking of airlines by size. American Airlines handled 76 million passengers in 1991; they traveled 82 billion passenger miles (132 billion km) for an average of 1,080 miles (1,740 km) per trip segment. American's revenues were $12 billion, so that the average cost per trip was $157, and its average yield was 14.5 cents per mile.
The largest non-U.S. airline in 1991 was British Airways, handling 23 million passengers who traveled 8.6 billion passenger miles (13.8 billion km) for an average of 1,695 miles (2,725 km) per trip segment. British Airways had revenues of $8.6 billion, with an average cost per trip of $373, or 22 cents per mile. In productivity terms, American Airlines produced 132 million passenger miles (212 million km) per aircraft from its fleet of 622 aircraft and $136,000 per employee from each of its 88,000 employees. British Airways did better, generating 169 million passenger miles (272 million km) from its 230 aircraft and $172,000 per employee from its 50,000 employees.
As a result of these fares and productivities, British Airways declared a profit in 1991 of $357 million, which greatly exceeded the $17 million declared by American Airlines. The U.S. passenger airlines have never ranked high in profitability, and it has been claimed that their losses in recent years have wiped out the aggregate of all the profits they have ever made.
Oddly enough, the most profitable U.S. airline in 1991 was Federal Express, which declared an operating profit of $320.6 million, but this derived from its small-package express air services and not from carrying passengers. The most profitable world carriers in 1991 were Singapore Airlines, which claimed a profit of $659 million on revenues of only $3 billion, and Cathay Pacific of Hong Kong, which claimed $468 million on only $2.7 billion. These are relatively small airlines with high productivity measures. Singapore produced 20 billion passenger miles (32.2 billion km) with only 46 aircraft, for a productivity value of 434 million passenger miles (698 million km) per aircraft (more than three times the figure for American Airlines), and $236,000 for each of its 12,500 employees (almost twice that of American). Cathay Pacific produced $333 million per aircraft and $212,000 for each of its 12,700 employees.
The average yield for Singapore Airlines in 1991 was 15 cents per passenger mile, not much different from that of American Airlines, and 18 cents per passenger mile for Cathay Pacific. The success of these two small airlines derives from their exclusively wide-body fleet, their low-cost labor force, and the currently strong growth of air travel in the Far East.
