How ScanSeats works

ScanSeats shows flights to and from the United States, airline by airline, and how full they run. Airline staff flying standby can see how full flights have been before they list.

What ScanSeats covers

Pick where you are leaving from and where you are going. ScanSeats shows the airlines that fly between the United States and that place, U.S. and foreign alike (109 airlines in all), and how full their flights ran each month. The figures come from records every airline files with the U.S. government for each flight into or out of the country.

Flying somewhere no U.S. flight reaches nonstop, such as Ljubljana in Slovenia? ScanSeats shows the measured flight to a nearby hub, then the airlines listed as flying onward from there. Those onward flights are drawn as a dashed line and carry no load history, because no public record of how full they run exists.

Flights between two countries outside the United States, such as Frankfurt to Bangkok, are not in U.S. records, so they appear only as an onward leg.

A few airlines fly to the United States but file nothing in the public U.S. records, such as Vietnam Airlines between San Francisco and Ho Chi Minh City. Their routes show as listed schedules, with how often they fly each week and no load history.

Three ways to use it

• Find another gatewayPick where you are going and see every gateway city that flies there, with how often and how full those flights have run. Compare ways into Europe
• Keep your destination openPick a region, a country, or several cities at once and see which places your airlines reach and how. Explore Asia
• Go beyond your airlineTurn on onward routes to add up to two listed flights on other airlines past the flight from the United States. Those legs show who flies them, not how full they run. Turn on onward connections

Reading the explorer

From and To

Choose any mix of airports, cities, countries, or regions. Leave From empty to see every supported origin, or To empty to see everywhere.

Airline gateways

The panel on the left lists each airline and its international gateways. Include or exclude airlines, pick a gateway to fill From or To, or use Only to focus on one airline.

Travel month

The explorer opens on the month you are most likely planning for (two weeks ahead), and you can pick any other. Every flight then shows how it ran in that month in recent years, up to the last five: how often it flew, its seats, how full it was, and about how many seats went empty, with a plain rating: usually open (80 percent full or less), tight (81 to 90 percent), or usually full (over 90 percent). A connection is rated by its fuller flight. Where a route also flew in 2015 to 2019, the route details add its track record, for example "over 90 percent full in 2 of 8 Octobers", counting those years and the recent ones but leaving out 2020 to 2022. Rank by Most open to see the emptiest destinations first; choose This month to see the current month as it ran last year, with the years before it. Try Most open

Recently flown

Each week ScanSeats counts the flights each airline actually flew out of U.S. gateways over the past seven days, and once a month at the foreign airports onward flights leave from. A route detail then shows, for example, "Recently flown: 6.9 a day", with any cancellations; an onward airline shows "flown" instead of just "listed". Where an airport sends no live flight status, the figure says "scheduled" instead. It is last week's record, not a promise about your date.

Map, cards, and route details

The map draws each route in its airline's color. Each destination card shows how many paths reach it, how many months they flew, and a twelve-month strip of loads ending this month: green for 80 percent full or less, amber for 81 to 90 percent, red for over 90 percent. The government publishes loads about three months late, so the newest months are estimates, drawn dashed. Select a card to open its paths and the details behind them.

Share a view

Every choice you make is kept in the page address, so you can bookmark a search or send it to a friend.

What the data means

Routes and loads for flights to and from the United States come from U.S. Department of Transportation BTS T-100 records for the latest twelve months published. Onward connections come from airline schedule listings and have no load history. They show where airlines have flown and how full those flights ran, which is a useful guide when you plan. They are not live seat availability, standby lists, fares, or a promise that a flight operates on your date. Check with your airline before you travel.

More about the sources is on the About page.