Passenger load factor (PLF) – or load factor – is a measure of the amount of utilisation of the total available capacity of a transport vehicle. It is useful for calculating the average occupancy on various routes of airlines, railway trains or bus. Using this information, airlines, trains or buses can determine the profitability and revenue potential of various routes.
In technical terms, the PLF is defined as the number of passenger-kilometres travelled as a percentage of the total seat-kilometres available. So, if an airline with 100 seats flies a distance of 1000 kilometres, the available seat-kilometres are 100,000. If 60 passengers travel the entire distance, the passenger-kilometres travelled is 60,000 and the PLF is 0.6.