With the unprecedented grounding of aircraft around the world due to global travel restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19, some airlines are continuing to operate flights.

There is a key difference between chartered repatriation flights that are still operating with special permission to bring citizens home and scheduled operations that are in place.

With many airlines still operating domestic flights in the U.S., frequency and load factors have been impacted. The data-based research project is related to the load factors (percentage of passengers vs. available seats) U.S. airlines need to break even.

With the passenger loads down, airlines requesting federal funding, and layoffs inevitable at almost every major airline the data illustrates how, for example, an American Airlines a320 loses $24,009 every time a plane takes off on a 1,000 mile trip at 20% full.