Aer Lingus Group Plc (AERL.L) reported Wednesday an increase in overall load factor for the month of September, with a decline in both traffic and capacity.
The total number of passengers the airline flew increased by 4.1% to 960 thousand from 922 thousand during the comparable month the year-earlier. While the number of passengers transported in the short haul increased to 874 thousand from 814 thousand, the number fell in the long haul to 86 thousand from 108 thousand in the comparable period a year ago.
Traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs, declined by 4.5% to 1.43 billion from 1.50 billion in the year-ago period. RPKs for short haul increased to 971 million from 891 million, while it fell to 466 million from 613 million in the long haul.
Capacity, measured in available seat kilometres or ASKs, declined 7.6% to 1.85 billion from 2.00 billion during the comparable period year-ago. Short haul ASKs increased by 7.7% to 1.20 billion from 1.11 billion in the year-earlier period. ASKs for long haul declined by 26.9% to 651 million from 890 million year-ago.
Aer Lingus' total passenger load factor increased by 2.5 percentage points to 77.5% from 75.0% year-ago. Passenger load factor in the short haul increased to 80.8% from 79.8% and for the long haul increased to 71.6% from 68.9%.
Year-to-date, the total number of passenger flown by the airline increased by 2.7% to 8.29 million from 8.07 million during the comparable period in the previous year. Total passenger load factor increased by 1.4 percentage points to 76.6% from 75.2% a year-ago. Total RPKs declined by 2.9% to 12.59 billion from 12.97 billion a year ago and the total ASKs declined by 4.6% to 16.45 billion from 17.24 billion in the comparable period the year earlier.
AERL is currently trading on the London Stock Exchange at 0.75 pence, up 4.17%.
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