The financial performance of the airline industry is sensitive to aircraft utilization and cost control. The industry uses a number of common measures to evaluate financial performance. Three of these are as follows:

Passenger Load Factor = RPM/ASM

Operating Revenue per Available Seat Mile = Operating Revenue/ASM

Operating Cost per Available Seat Mile = Operating Cost/ASM

Available seat mile (ASM) is the total number of seats available for transporting passengers multiplied by the total number of miles flown during a reporting period. Revenue passenger mile (RPM) is the total number of seats purchased by passengers multiplied by the total number of miles flown during a reporting period.

The following table provides some recent operating statistics for four passenger airlines:

a. Prepare a table showing for each airline the load factor, operating revenue per ASM, operating cost per ASM, and operating margin (profit) per ASM. Round to four decimal places.
b. Interpret the results in (a) for the fourairlines.

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Available Seat Miles ASM) (in millions) Revenue Passenger Miles (RPM) (in millions) 68,476 98,674 37,741 53,418 Operating Revenue (in millions) 7,936 13,303 5,536 6,530 Operating Cost (in millions) 8,800 14,089 5,850 5,976 Northwest Airlines Delta Air Lines U.S. Airways Southwest Airlines 88,593 134,383 51,494 76,861