SWA, AA Claim Highest August Loads In Companies' Histories

After an tortuous June and July, August brought record passenger loads to several US airlines. The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday American Airlines and Southwest Airlines reported load numbers that were the highest August numbers in their respective histories.

American Airlines, the world's largest airline, reported an August load factor of 85.0 percent -- an increase of 3.0 points compared to the same period last year. Traffic increased 0.4 percent year over year as capacity decreased 3.1 percent.

Domestic traffic increased 1.5 percent year over year on 3.4 percent less capacity. International traffic decreased by 1.6 percent relative to last year on a capacity decrease of 2.6 percent.

American boarded 8.8 million passengers in August, the carrier said.

Southwest said it flew 7.0 billion revenue passenger miles (RPMs) in August, a 12.1 percent increase from the 6.2 billion RPMs flown in August 2006. Available seat miles (ASMs) increased 8.1 percent to 8.7 billion from the August 2006 level of 8.1 billion. The load factor for the month was 80.0 percent, compared to 77.1 percent for the same period last year.

Continental Airlines is reporting it flew 9.1 billion consolidated RPMs and 10.6 billion consolidated ASMs, resulting in a traffic increase of 8.1 percent and a capacity increase of 4.4 percent as compared to August 2006. In August 2007, the carrier flew 8.2 billion mainline RPMs and 9.5 billion mainline ASMs, resulting in a mainline traffic increase of 9.7 percent and a mainline capacity increase of 6.0 percent as compared to August 2006. Domestic mainline traffic was 4.3 billion RPMs in August 2007, up 8.7 percent from August 2006, and domestic mainline capacity was 4.9 billion ASMs, up 5.6 percent from August 2006.

AirTran said its traffic grew by 34.6 percent to more than 1.7 billion RPMs based on a 20.4 percent increase in capacity. The company's load factor for the month was 84.3 percent. The airline enplaned more than 2.3 million passengers for the month, a 28.4 percent increase over August 2006.

United Airlines reported it's highest-ever August passenger load factor of 86.3 percent. Total scheduled revenue passenger miles (RPMs) increased in August by 2.3 percent on a capacity decrease of 1.0 percent in scheduled available seat miles (ASMs) compared with the same period in 2006.

Collectively, this group had an August load factor of 84.6 percent, compared with 86.4 percent in June and 86.3 percent in July.

FMI: www.aa.com, www.southwest.com, www.airtran.com, www.continental.com, www.united.com