The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released U.S. airlines’ December fuel cost and consumption numbers indicating U.S. scheduled service airlines used 1.471 billion gallons of fuel, 5.3% more fuel than in November 2022 (1.398 billion gallons) and 5.2% less than in pre-pandemic December 2019. The cost per gallon of fuel in December 2022 ($3.14) was down 18 cents (5.3%) from November 2022 ($3.32) and up $1.14 (57.0%) from December 2019. Total December 2022 fuel expenditure ($4.63B) was down 0.3% from November 2022 ($4.64B) and up 48.7% from pre-pandemic December 2019.

Year-over-year increases in fuel consumption and cost for December include 3.0% in domestic fuel consumption, 51.4% in domestic fuel cost, and 47.0% in cost per gallon. Domestic fuel consumption increased 4.2% from November to December in 2022, while decreasing 5.0% from December 2019. Increased fuel consumption reflects an increase in airline passenger travel over the same period.