Airline employment down 4.4 percent over the past five years

Payrolls at airlines shrunk 4.4 percent over the past five years, according to a new report from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

U.S. carriers employed 388,992 workers in August 2012, which is 0.1 percent more than the industry's payroll in August 2011. But it is the highest employment total within the industry since 2008.

Of the network carriers, Fort Worth-based American Airlines reported the largest decline, down 7.9 percent in when comparing August 2008 to August 2012, the BTS said. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines increased its payroll 5.8 percent in August 2012 when compared to what Southwest and AirTran reported separately in August 2008.

BTS' spokesman Dave Smallen also provided Sky Talk with American's individual payroll numbers since 1990. I have included that chart, which shows American's employment each August for the past 22 years, below.

Airline employment in August from 2008-2012

Year	Network	Low-Cost	Regional	All Passenger Airlines
2008	276,118	62,870	60,346	406,716
2009	258,569	62,775	56,236	384,304
2010	256,122	64,022	52,179	377,835
2011	263,063	67,682	53,284	388,523
2012	262,426	69,379	52,079	388,992
Pct. Change 2008-2012	-5.0%	10.4%	-13.7%	-4.4%

American Airlines employment in August from 1990-2012

Year	Full-time	Part-time	Full-time + Part-time	Full-time Equivalent*
1990	72,513	9,694	82,207	77,360
1991	76,887	11,029	87,916	82,402
1992	85,148	13,404	98,552	91,850
1993	83,306	14,498	97,804	90,555
1994	78,786	14,976	93,762	86,274
1995	78,335	12,783	91,118	84,727
1996	73,716	12,268	85,984	79,850
1997	74,977	13,358	88,335	81,656
1998	75,472	13,850	89,322	82,397
1999	80,007	14,901	94,908	87,458
2000	85,140	14,676	99,816	92,478
2001	88,665	14,177	102,842	95,754
2002	91,839	15,472	107,311	99,575
2003	75,801	12,236	88,037	81,919
2004	74,245	11,137	85,382	79,814
2005	70,200	11,409	81,609	75,905
2006	68,037	10,585	78,622	73,330
2007	67,812	10,616	78,428	73,120
2008	67,187	10,628	77,815	72,501
2009	62,959	9,692	72,651	67,805
2010	61,133	9,164	70,297	65,715
2011	61,831	8,942	70,773	66,302
2012	59,655	8,193	67,848	63,752

-Andrea Ahles