Continental Airlines reported Monday its traffic for January increased 8.5%, while its passenger load factor improved 4.0 points over last year.
Traffic for the month improved 8.5% to 6.98 billion revenue passenger miles (RPMs) from 6.43 billion RPMs in the prior year month. Capacity rose 2.8% to 9.04 billion available seat miles (ASMs) from 8.79 billion ASMs in the year-ago month.
Mainline capacity grew 3.1% to 8.05 billion ASMs, and regional capacity improved 0.9% to 984.94 million ASMs for the month. Passenger load factor improved 4.0 points to 77.2% from 73.2% in January 2009.
Mainline load factor rose 4.0 points to 78%, and regional load factor grew 4.2 points to 70.7% over the prior year factor. During the month, the Houston, Texas-based airline carried 4.71 million passengers, up 3.1% from 4.56 million passengers carried last year.
Cargo revenue ton miles grew 2% to 64.38 million from 63.10 million in the previous year month. During January, Continental recorded U.S. on time arrival rate of 82.3% and a mainline segment completion factor of 99.5%.
For January 2010, consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile (RASM) is estimated to have decreased between 1.0% and 2.0% compared to January 2009, while mainline RASM is estimated to have decreased between 2.5% and 3.5%.
For December 2009, consolidated passenger RASM decreased 4.1% compared to December 2008, while mainline passenger RASM decreased 4.8% compared to December 2008.
