We make history every day, but we don't always know we're doing it. Fortunately, there are entities in government and in the private sector who keep score, enabling us to offer these periodic updates.
The Transportation Department confirmed last week that the U.S. airline industry achieved a system average load factor of 82.8% in 2012, and an average in domestic service of 83.4%.
These are the highest numbers on record for what we used to call the postwar period, i.e., since 1945. If you've been thinking that you've never seen aircraft as crowded as they are today, you've been right.
For context, readers could note that the average load factors in the late 1970s, when the winds of deregulation started to blow, tended to be in the high 50s or low 60s.
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Boeing recently delivered the 7,500th 737 aircraft. We observe at the outset that 7,500 is not one of those nice milestone numbers like 5,000 or 10,000, but it still qualifies in our book.
For one thing, it confirms the 737 as the top-selling commercial jetliner of all time. In addition to the 7,500 that have been delivered, another 3,000 are on order, so the 10,000 mark is only a matter of time.
In what may be a sign of the times, the milestone aircraft was a 737-900ER delivered to Malindo Air, a new entrant that recently launched low-fare service in Malaysia.
The first 737 rolled off the assembly line in 1967, and we doubt if anybody at the time believed that the stubby little twinjet would give birth to a line of descendants that would stay in production for 50 years, but that's what's happening.