McKinsey & Co article on the economics of an airline flight.

Interesting, but I've been on quite a few international flights in recent years when all or almost all seats are occupied, despite my historic view that normally five per cent of passengers will be no-shows for a multitude of reasons.

The lowest number of passengers I've ever had was 130 on an Airbus A333 (international flight), and 11 on an Ansett plane (probably a 737 IIRC) from Melbourne to Canberra. These were outliers.

Given what's occurring with the Iran war, fuel prices (despite QFi hedging 80 per cent of its requirements) may have been underestimated in the article.
 
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