The collection of the data, mandated by the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, is a cooperative effort among the domestic air carriers, the Air Transport Association of America, and the Department of Transportation. The data resulting from the survey are compiled by the Data Administration Division of the Office of Aviation Information Management, Research & Special Programs Administration, of the United States Department of Transportation.

The raw materials for the Origin-Destination survey are provided by all U.S. certificated route air carriers, except for a) helicopter carriers, b) intra-Alaska carriers, and c) domestic carriers who have been granted waivers because they operate only small aircraft with 60 or fewer seats. Those Alaskan carriers which operate routes extending beyond the State of Alaska report survey data for any traffic moving over these routes, but are not required to report on purely intra-Alaskan traffic.

The data collection effort itself is a continuous survey, not of passengers per se, but of ticket coupons. An airline ticket generally consists of a series of coupons. Each separate coupon represents an aircraft boarded. The flight coupons which are surrendered by passengers upon boarding a flight are the primary source of the survey.

From the universe of all flight coupons collected by all certificated carriers, a constant ten percent sample is extracted. The sample is obtained as follows: whenever a participating carrier lifts the first flight coupon from any ticket, it retains and reports selected information from that ticket if, and only if, the serial number of the ticket ends in a zero, or if the ticket represents 11 or more passengers. Coupons from tickets with serial numbers ending in any digit other than a zero are excluded from the survey. Also excluded are any coupons other than the very first coupon of the ticket which represents a participating carrier. (This coupon contains the full detail of the ticket.)

The resultant Origin-Destination survey covers revenue passenger trips moving either in whole or in part via the scheduled services of certificated air carriers. The data collected encompass the full itinerary of the passenger, as it is reflected on the ticket, from initial origin to ultimate destination Including any carriage by nonparticipating carriers.