(RTTNews) - Continental Airlines Inc. (CAL: News ) said Monday evening that its consolidated traffic for October grew 1.7% over last year, while passenger load factor rose by 3.5 points and capacity decreased 2.6%.

The Houston, Texas-based airline said that its traffic for the month of October increased 1.7% to 7.26 billion revenue passenger miles or RPMs from 7.14 billion RPMs in the prior-year month.

Capacity for the month decreased 2.6% to 8.80 billion available seat miles or ASMs from 9.04 billion ASMs in the same period last year. Passenger load factor grew by 3.5 points year-over-year to 82.5% from 79.0% a year ago.

During October, the world's fifth largest airline carried 5.12 million passengers, down 1.0% from 5.17 million passengers carried in the similar period last year.

Continental said that for October, it estimates consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile or RASM to have decreased between 14.0% and 15.0% compared to October 2008, while mainline RASM is estimated to have decreased between 15.0% and 16.0%.
Further, the company said that for September 2009, consolidated passenger RASM decreased 19.2%, while mainline passenger RASM decreased 21.1% compared to September 2008.

Continental recorded a U.S. Department of Transportation on-time arrival rate of 75.1% and a mainline segment completion factor of 99.8% during the month of October.

For the year-to-date period, the airline's consolidated traffic decreased 5.3% to 74.83 billion RPMs from 79.00 billion RPMs in the previous-year period. Capacity for the period fell 6.2% to 92.06 billion ASMs from 98.10 ASMs in the year-ago period. Passenger load factor rose 0.8 points to 81.3% from 80.5% in the prior year period.

CAL closed Monday's regular trading session at $11.32, down $0.18 or 1.57% on a volume of 11.60 million shares.

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by RTT Staff Writer

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