Log In | Register
DALLAS — Discount carrier Southwest Airlines Co. reported Wednesday that April traffic and load factor rose while capacity fell, compared to the same month last year.
The Dallas-based airline said it flew 6.5 billion revenue passenger miles in April, a 4.1 percent increase from the 6.3 billion revenue passenger miles flown in the same month in 2008.
A revenue passenger mile is a unit measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.
Capacity decreased 1.9 percent to 8.5 billion available seat miles from the April 2008 level of 8.6 billion.
Load factor, or occupancy, for April was 77.0 percent, compared to 72.6 percent for the same period last year.
Year-to-date through the end of April, Southwest flew 23.4 billion revenue passenger miles, compared to 23.9 billion recorded for the same period in 2008. Available seat miles decreased 3.5 percent to 32.6 billion from the 2008 level of 33.8 billion. The year-to-date load factor was 71.7 percent, compared to 70.5 percent for the same period last year.
The company said that current revenue and booking trends continue to be constrained by the weak economic environment and now also by concerns over the swine flu outbreak. It expects the year-over-year decline in second quarter 2009 passenger revenues per available seat mile to exceed first quarter 2009's decline of 2.8 percent.
