Rankings / Delta Air Lines
2025 report cardDelta Air Lines
In 2025 Delta Air Lines flew 58.0 passenger-miles per gallon of jet fuel, ranking 12 of 13. That's 4% worse than the all-airline figure that year. Since 2000 its figure has risen 49%.
About Delta Air Lines
Delta runs hubs at Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, Salt Lake City and Seattle, and it absorbed Northwest Airlines in its 2008 merger. Regional partners fly a share of its schedule under the Delta Connection name. That share has shrunk over the period as Delta moved flying onto larger aircraft.
- 58.0passenger-miles per gallon, 2025
- 0.168 kgCO2 per passenger-mile
- 84%of seats filled
- 127seats per flight on average
The story in the figures
Delta Air Lines' passenger-miles per gallon rose 49% between 2000 and 2025, from 38.8 to 58.0. Most of that came from the aircraft: seat-miles per gallon rose 30%, while planes ran fuller, with 73% of seat-miles filled in 2000 against 84% in 2025.
The shape of the flying changed as well: the average passenger flew 919 miles per segment in 2000 and 1,219 in 2025. In general, longer flights spend a smaller share of their fuel on takeoff and climb.
Its best year was 2024, at 59.3 passenger-miles per gallon.
In 2020 the pandemic emptied the cabins: load factor dropped from 86% to 55%, and passenger-miles per gallon fell from 54.8 to 37.5. A flight burns most of its fuel whether the seats are full or not, which is why an empty year looks so bad per passenger. By 2025 the figure was 5.8% above its 2019 level.
Against the all-airline figure for 2025 (60.6), Delta Air Lines was 4.3% worse. On a 1,000 mile trip that works out to 168 kg of CO2 for one passenger, from burning jet fuel only.
What one seat costs the climate
CO2 for one passenger on Delta Air Lines, from burning jet fuel only.
- 84 kgover 500 miles
- 168 kgover 1,000 miles
- 336 kgover 2,000 miles
Delta Air Lines sells seats on flights operated by regional partners, mainly SkyWest Airlines, Endeavor Air, and Republic Airways. In 2025 about 8.0% of its seat-miles were flown by regionals. How much of each regional's flying belongs to Delta Air Lines is an estimate based on the hubs the regional serves. The figure for 2025 sits between 57.6 and 58.0 passenger-miles per gallon depending on how multi-airline regionals are split. See the methodology.
BTS began combining Delta and Northwest filings in January 2010. Northwest Airlines has its own page for 2000 to 2009, so the Delta line includes Northwest from 2010 on.
Year-by-year figures
| Year | Passenger-miles per gallon | kg CO2 per passenger-mile | Seat-miles per gallon | Load factor | Passengers (millions) | Fuel (million gallons) | CO2 (thousand tonnes) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 58.0 | 0.168 | 69.2 | 83.7% | 207.4 | 4,362 | 42,531 |
| 2024 | 59.3 | 0.164 | 69.5 | 85.3% | 208.3 | 4,213 | 41,075 |
| 2023 | 58.8 | 0.166 | 68.9 | 85.3% | 198.0 | 4,003 | 39,033 |
| 2022 | 57.0 | 0.171 | 67.9 | 83.8% | 178.6 | 3,497 | 34,097 |
| 2021 | 48.3 | 0.202 | 69.5 | 69.5% | 139.2 | 2,873 | 28,013 |
| 2020 | 37.5 | 0.260 | 68.0 | 55.1% | 77.6 | 2,058 | 20,064 |
| 2019 | 54.8 | 0.178 | 63.7 | 86.0% | 224.0 | 4,528 | 44,149 |
| 2018 | 52.9 | 0.184 | 62.1 | 85.2% | 212.1 | 4,433 | 43,226 |
| 2017 | 52.8 | 0.185 | 61.9 | 85.2% | 206.8 | 4,280 | 41,733 |
| 2016 | 51.2 | 0.190 | 60.7 | 84.4% | 205.8 | 4,326 | 42,178 |
| 2015 | 49.8 | 0.196 | 58.7 | 84.7% | 214.3 | 4,477 | 43,655 |
| 2014 | 50.0 | 0.195 | 59.2 | 84.5% | 209.1 | 4,349 | 42,405 |
| 2013 | 48.4 | 0.201 | 58.0 | 83.5% | 198.7 | 4,290 | 41,829 |
| 2012 | 48.9 | 0.199 | 58.5 | 83.5% | 191.4 | 4,130 | 40,263 |
| 2011 | 47.3 | 0.206 | 57.8 | 81.8% | 194.0 | 4,315 | 42,070 |
| 2010 | 48.5 | 0.201 | 58.7 | 82.6% | 187.0 | 4,148 | 40,445 |
| 2009 | 47.8 | 0.204 | 58.6 | 81.5% | 104.6 | 2,448 | 23,872 |
| 2008 | 48.6 | 0.201 | 59.9 | 81.1% | 109.6 | 2,534 | 24,702 |
| 2007 | 48.8 | 0.200 | 60.9 | 80.1% | 113.1 | 2,511 | 24,483 |
| 2006 | 46.1 | 0.212 | 58.8 | 78.4% | 109.8 | 2,514 | 24,514 |
| 2005 | 43.9 | 0.222 | 57.5 | 76.5% | 124.5 | 2,751 | 26,823 |
| 2004 | 42.2 | 0.231 | 56.6 | 74.5% | 124.4 | 2,711 | 26,430 |
| 2003 | 40.5 | 0.241 | 55.3 | 73.2% | 117.4 | 2,543 | 24,792 |
| 2002 | 40.8 | 0.239 | 56.7 | 71.9% | 113.1 | 2,534 | 24,703 |
| 2001 | 38.1 | 0.256 | 55.5 | 68.6% | 109.7 | 2,683 | 26,157 |
| 2000 | 38.8 | 0.251 | 53.3 | 72.9% | 122.2 | 2,892 | 28,194 |
The Delta Air Lines fleet
Delta Air Lines operated 989 passenger aircraft of its own in 2025. The regional airlines that fly for it file their own fleets. The average age was 14.3 years: 20% of the aircraft were under five years old and 43% were twenty or older. The oldest was a Boeing 757-200 built in 1990. That's the 9th youngest of the 12 airlines ranked here.
In 2006 the average age was 12.3 years across 440 aircraft. It's older now by 2.0 years, and the fleet is bigger.
On the Boeing 737-900 and 900ER, Delta Air Lines fits 179 seats on average, against a median of 181 at the other airlines that fly it (173 to 181). Seats on the same aircraft are one reason fuel per seat and fuel per passenger differ between airlines: the fuel burned by a given plane is much the same, and more seats share it.
Delta Air Lines aircraft by model, 2025
| Model | Aircraft | Average seats | Other airlines, median seats | Average age |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 737-900 and 900ER | 163 | 179 | 181 | 9.5 |
| Airbus A321 | 127 | 191 | 222 | 6.5 |
| Airbus A321neo | 87 | 191 | 220 | 1.6 |
| Boeing 717-200 | 80 | 110 | 23.8 | |
| Boeing 737-800 | 77 | 160 | 175 | 23.9 |
| Boeing 757-200 | 76 | 193 | 169 | 26.6 |
| Airbus A319 | 57 | 132 | 128 | 23.4 |
| Airbus A320 | 46 | 157 | 161 | 28.5 |
| Airbus A220-100 | 45 | 109 | 5.5 | |
| Airbus A350-900 | 40 | 289 | 4.8 | |
| Airbus A330-900 | 39 | 281 | 2.6 | |
| Boeing 767-300 | 37 | 215 | 198 | 28.4 |
| Airbus A220-300 | 36 | 130 | 140 | 2.2 |
| Airbus A330-300 | 31 | 282 | 16.4 | |
| Boeing 767-400 | 21 | 238 | 235 | 24.4 |
| Boeing 757-300 | 16 | 234 | 216 | 22.4 |
| Airbus A330-200 | 11 | 223 | 20.3 |
All the airlines are compared on the fleets page.
Neighbours in the ranking
Nearby airline results
These airlines sit nearby by passenger-miles per gallon in their last data year. Historical airlines have different end years, shown here, so this isn't a same-year ranking.
Airline references
Source: US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Schedule P-12(a) fuel, T-100 traffic and regional Schedule T-2 filings; US EPA jet-fuel CO2 factor. See the methodology.