July 8, 2010
Southwest Airlines packed a lot of people into its airplanes last month. However, for the first time in a year, Southwest didn’t set a monthly record for loads.
The Dallas-based carrier said Wednesday that it filled 81.9 percent of its seats in June, up 2.4 points from June 2009. That number fell a little short of its June record of 82.1 percent, set in 2007.
Since last July, each month established a new monthly record for load factors. In fact, July 2009 recorded Southwest’s highest loads for any month, with 83.2 percent of seats filled.
American Airlines reported a load factor of 86.8 percent for June. As with Southwest, the loads were up from 2009 but below the airline’s June record set in 2007, 87.1 percent.
Southwest said its traffic rose 5 percent over June 2009, while its capacity increased 1.9 percent.
Southwest also said its unit revenue – revenue per seat-mile flown – jumped 24 percent over last year’s dismal June.
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Other airlines have reported healthy increases in traffic and high load factors as they released their June operational reports. Airline demand and revenue plummeted in 2009, and carriers are still recovering from last year’s deep trough.
With six of the nine largest carriers reporting June results, the group has recorded a traffic jump of 5 percent on a capacity increase of 2.3 percent.
The load factors for the group have increased 2.2 percentage points to 86.5 percent.
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