Alaska Airlines says August traffic fell

posted: 87 DAYS 4 HOURS AGO

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SEATTLE -Alaska Airlines said Wednesday that its August traffic and capacity fell from a year ago, but load factor rose.

The airline flew 1.78 billion revenue passenger miles last month, a 0.8 percent decline from 1.79 billion in August 2008.

A revenue passenger mile is an industry metric measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.

Available seat miles, or capacity, fell 2.9 percent to 2.11 billion from 2.17 billion a year earlier.

Load factor, or occupancy, rose 1.8 percentage points to 84.3 percent from 82.5 percent a year earlier.

Year-to-date through the end of August, Alaska Airlines' revenue passenger miles fell 4.8 percent to 12.36 billion from 12.98 billion a year ago, available seat miles fell 6.8 percent to 15.61 billion from 16.74 billion a year ago, and load factor rose 1.7 percentage points to 79.2 percent from 77.5 percent a year ago.

At sister carrier Horizon Air, August traffic fell 11.7 percent to 229 million revenue passenger miles from 260 million a year ago, while available seat miles fell 12.9 percent to 289 million from 332 million a year ago, and load factor rose 1.1 percentage points to 79.2 percent from 78.1 percent a year ago.

Year-to-date, Horizon's traffic fell 14.5 percent to 1.60 billion revenue passenger miles from 1.87 billion a year ago, while available seat miles fell 13.9 percent to 2.20 billion from 2.55 billion a year ago, and load factor fell 0.5 percentage points to 72.8 percent from 73.3 percent a year ago.

2009-09-02 16:31:07