Thursday, Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) said combined traffic, including Delta and Northwest operations, for May fell 9.7%, while load factor slipped 1.6 points.
The Atlanta, Georgia-based airline's combined system traffic for May decreased 9.7% to 15.85 billion revenue passenger miles, or RPMs, from 17.56 billion RPMs in the prior-year month. Combined system capacity, expressed in available seat miles, or ASMs, declined 7.9% to 19.27 billion ASMs from 20.92 billion ASMs in the year-ago month.
System load factor declined 1.6 points to 82.3% from $83.9% in May 2008. Load factor is a measure of how much of an airline's passenger carrying capacity is used, or passenger-kilometers flown as a percentage of seat-kilometers available.
Domestic traffic decreased 6.5% to 9.85 billion RPMs, on a 6.0% decrease in capacity. Domestic load factor slipped 0.4 points to 84.1%.
International traffic decreased 14.6% to 6.00 billion RPMs from last year on a 10.7% decline in capacity. International load factor declined 3.7 points to 79.4% for the month.
For the year-to-date period, combined system traffic dipped 9.2% to 74.23 billion RPMs from 81.77 billion RPMs in the comparable period last year, while capacity declined 6.9% to 93.94 billion ASMs from 100.87 billion ASMs a year ago. Load factor decreased 2.1 points to 79.0% from 81.1% in the same period last year.
Domestic traffic for the year-to-date period slipped 8.8% to 46.32 billion RPMs, on an 8.3% decrease in capacity, as domestic load factor edged down 0.4 points to 80.9% from 81.3% a year ago.
Year-to-date, International traffic was 27.91 billion RPMs, down 9.8% from last year, with a 4.6% decline in capacity. Load factor was down 4.5 points to 76.1%.
DAL is currently trading at $7.08, down $0.13 or 1.80%.
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