US Flight Traffic
US Flight Traffic Data
US commercial aviation generates a high-frequency pulse of economic activity — business travel, cargo belly capacity, leisure demand and airline operational health all show up in daily flight counts. FinzData's Global Macro Pulse air module provides daily departures, arrivals, active aircraft, cancellations and delays by airline and airport, with history back to 1987. Traders use these series to nowcast consumer spending, supply-chain throughput and airline earnings; economists track business-cycle turning points; data scientists build demand models for jet fuel, hotel occupancy and airport retail.
Why US flight traffic matters to markets
Air travel is a leading indicator of services consumption and business confidence. A sustained rise in departures signals expanding corporate travel budgets and household discretionary strength; a drop in active aircraft or a spike in cancellations often precedes earnings warnings from carriers and downstream sectors such as aerospace parts, jet fuel refining and airport concessions. Because the data is daily and segmented by airline and airport, you can isolate regional demand shifts — for example, Sun Belt leisure strength versus Northeast business weakness — and correlate them with credit-card spending, hotel RevPAR and rail freight intermodal volumes.
- Daily departures, arrivals and active aircraft by airline and airport since 1987
- Cancellations and delays broken out by carrier and hub
- Point-in-time vintages: each row reflects what was known that day
What the data shows
The US air dataset covers every commercial flight operated by US carriers and foreign carriers serving US airports. Fields include scheduled and actual departure and arrival times, cancellation codes, delay minutes by cause (carrier, weather, NAS, security, late aircraft), aircraft type, and tail number where available. Aggregations are available at the airport, airline, state and national level. The series are delivered with point-in-time semantics: each daily snapshot preserves the information set available on that date, so backtests avoid look-ahead bias. You can track the recovery trajectory from 2020, compare seasonal patterns across years, and measure the impact of weather events, ATC staffing shortages or airline schedule changes on on-time performance.
- National and airport-level totals updated daily
- Delay-cause breakdown for root-cause analysis
- Vintage-preserving schema for rigorous backtesting
How to use it
Access the data through your FinzData API key with the MCP tool get_global_pulse or call GET https://api.finzdata.com/v1/pulse/air_us?match=NAME. Filter by airline IATA code, airport ICAO code, date range, or delay threshold. Join with the 16,000+ US equity universe, 5,100+ ETFs, 139 futures markets and 18,000+ macro series on the same key to build cross-asset signals — for example, long jet-fuel crack spreads when departures exceed seasonal norms, or short regional airline equities when cancellation rates breach the 90th percentile. The point-in-time structure lets you simulate exactly what a strategy would have seen in real time.
- Filter by airline, airport, date, delay minutes
- Join with equities, ETFs, futures and macro on one key
- Point-in-time rows eliminate look-ahead bias
Ask your AI
Use the FinzData connector in Claude, ChatGPT or Grok to ask questions in natural language. Example prompts:
- Using FinzData, show me daily US flight cancellations by airline for the last 90 days and flag any carrier above the 95th percentile.
- Using FinzData, plot the 7-day moving average of active aircraft for Delta, United and American since 2019 and highlight divergence periods.
- Using FinzData, compute the correlation between national departure growth and the S&P 500 airlines sub-index on a rolling 60-day basis.
Get the data
US flight traffic is part of FinzData Global Macro Pulse. Buy the full suite — every dataset and full history — for a one-time $195 at Get Global Macro Pulse, $195. Prefer just the Air traffic theme? Subscribe for $29. Add Pulse for $145 alongside any other data purchase. Every API key gets the last 30 days free.
Frequently asked questions
How far back does the US flight data go?
Daily US flight departures, arrivals, cancellations and delays are available from 1987 onward.
Can I filter by specific airline or airport?
Yes. Query by airline IATA code, airport ICAO code, state, or national aggregates.
Does the data include delay causes?
Delay minutes are broken out by carrier, weather, NAS, security and late-aircraft categories.
Is the data point-in-time?
Every row preserves the information set known on that date, enabling look-ahead-free backtests.