CommuteAir

CommuteAir began flying in 1989 as a US Airways affiliate, switched to Continental in 2000, and became a United Express carrier after United and Continental merged in 2010. It flew turboprops until January 2018, when its last Bombardier Q200 left service, and since 2016 has flown the 50-seat Embraer ERJ-145. In 2020 it became the only operator of the United Express ERJ-145 fleet, from bases at Houston and Washington Dulles. Seats per flight in this data rise from 19 in 2003 to 50 in 2025 as jets replaced turboprops.

A twin turboprop airliner lifting off from a runway — Illustrative photo, not an aircraft of CommuteAir.

3.6 millionpassengers, 2025
50seats per flight on average
371 milesaverage trip per passenger
38.2seat-miles per gallon

How it changed

CommuteAir carried 3.6 million passengers in 2025, its busiest year in this data.

Its average flight had 19 seats in 2003 and 50 in 2025, a sign of larger aircraft replacing smaller ones. The average passenger flew 176 miles per segment in 2003 and 371 in 2025, and 85% of its seat-miles were filled in 2025.

CommuteAir passengers per year, 2003 to 2025.

Who it flew for

Share of CommuteAir seat-miles estimated to belong to each airline, by year. The split comes from the airports it serves, so read it as an estimate. Years with no figures are those where the flying was too small to estimate or the airline sold its own seats.

Estimated partner shares

Year	United Airlines	Delta Air Lines
2025	94.3%	5.7%
2024	91.2%	8.8%
2023	96.3%	3.7%
2022	95.3%	4.7%
2021	93.9%	6.1%
2020	92.0%	8.0%
2019	100.0%
2018	100.0%
2017	99.9%

The fleet

CommuteAir operated 49 passenger aircraft of its own in 2025. The average age was 21.0 years: 0% of the aircraft were under five years old and 90% were twenty or older. The oldest was an Embraer ERJ-145 built in 2002.

In 2020 the average age was 16.0 years across 51 aircraft. It's older now by 5.0 years, and the fleet is smaller.

CommuteAir aircraft by model, 2025

Model	Aircraft	Average seats	Average age
Embraer ERJ-145	49	50	21.0

Fuel

In 2025 CommuteAir burned 41 million gallons of jet fuel, which is 38.2 seat-miles per gallon and about 0.301 kg of CO2 per passenger-mile. Over 500 miles that's roughly 151 kg per passenger. Small regional aircraft burn more fuel per seat than the mainline jets, and a short hop spends a larger share of its fuel on take-off and climb, so these figures aren't graded against the airlines on the main list. Their flying and fuel are counted in the airlines whose names are on the tickets.

For some years CommuteAir didn't file usable fuel figures with BTS. In 8 of them we priced its own flight hours at the fuel burn per hour that other airlines reported for the same aircraft types that year; in 10 we used the median seat-miles per gallon of the regionals that did report. They're marked with an asterisk in the table below. See the methodology.

Year-by-year figures

Year	Passengers (millions)	Departures (thousands)	Seats per flight	Average trip (miles)	Load factor	Seat-miles (billions)	Seat-miles per gallon
2025	3.6	84	50.0	371	84.7%	1.57	38.2
2024	3.2	75	50.0	387	85.9%	1.45	38.8
2023	3.1	72	50.0	400	86.4%	1.43	39.1
2022	3.2	78	50.0	413	83.6%	1.59	43.3
2021	2.9	76	50.0	410	78.2%	1.53	45.9
2020	1.0	33	50.0	402	64.3%	0.64	32.3*
2019	2.4	58	50.0	391	82.9%	1.12	30.1*
2018	1.9	46	50.0	350	82.4%	0.80	43.6*
2017	1.6	46	44.6	302	81.0%	0.59	43.4*
2016	1.3	41	41.3	218	80.6%	0.36	45.9*
2015	1.1	34	40.6	200	79.5%	0.28	44.9*
2014	1.1	38	40.5	209	75.9%	0.32	45.0*
2013	1.4	48	40.0	190	74.0%	0.36	36.7*
2012	1.3	47	40.1	185	71.5%	0.35	36.5*
2011	1.0	40	38.6	179	65.3%	0.27	34.5*
2010	0.9	35	37.0	171	67.0%	0.23	32.6*
2009	0.8	35	37.0	174	64.0%	0.23	32.7*
2008	0.7	34	36.6	203	57.0%	0.25	36.8*
2007	0.5	34	24.0	208	59.4%	0.16	49.4*
2006	0.3	39	19.0	182	48.1%	0.12	42.5*
2005	0.4	47	19.0	180	43.9%	0.16	40.5*
2004	0.4	57	19.0	175	43.2%	0.18	42.9*
2003	0.4	52	19.0	176	38.0%	0.16	42.2*

Regionals with shared partners

These profiles have a partner airline in common with CommuteAir in at least one data year. The partner split is estimated, and the airlines may have flown for the shared network at different times.

Nearby in fuel efficiency

Neighbours in the seat-miles per gallon table, using each airline's last data year. Fuel estimates are marked on the profiles, and these aren't same-year rankings.

Comair34.4 seat-miles per gallon, 2012 Chautauqua Airlines34.8 seat-miles per gallon, 2014 PSA Airlines39.7 seat-miles per gallon, 2025 Freedom Airlines40.1 seat-miles per gallon, 2010

Airline references

Source: US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), T-100 traffic and Schedule T-2 fuel filings; US EPA jet-fuel CO2 factor. Methods and allocation limits.

Back to all regional airlines or the fuel rankings.