load factor

American  

noun

1. the amount or weight of cargo, number of passengers, etc., that an aircraft, vehicle, or vessel can carry.

2. the percentage of available seats, space, or maximum carrying weight paid for and used by passengers, shippers, etc..

   An airline can't profit on a 40 percent load factor.

3. Electricity. the ratio of the average load over a designated period of time to the peak load occurring in that period.

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load factor British  

noun

1. the ratio of the average electric load to the peak load over a period of time

2. aeronautics

   1. the ratio of a given external load to the weight of an aircraft

   2. the actual payload carried by an aircraft as a percentage of its maximum payload

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Etymology

Origin of load factor

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

The group increased its capacity by 2.4% in 2025, while passenger load factor, a measure of how full the planes fly, decreased 0.9 percentage point to 85.6%.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026

Rousseau says that Air Canada saw notable success in the Atlantic and Latin America as each posted load factor expansion from the prior year.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 13, 2026

That was the first time in six quarters that load factor didn’t miss expectations, according to FactSet data.

From MarketWatch • Oct. 9, 2025

As a result, its passenger load factor was 87.2% for the first-half, compared with 59.2% last year.

From Reuters • Jul. 14, 2023

Many schemes are employed for improving the load factor, or, in other words, to encourage a long use of central station product.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 by Various