Continental Airlines Inc. said on Monday that its traffic rose 1.7 percent in October, even as it reduced flying.
Continental said it flew 7.26 billion revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger flown one mile, across its system, including regional flights. That was up from 7.14 billion revenue passenger miles in October 2008.
Not counting regional partners, Continental said traffic rose 1.9 percent to 6.47 billion revenue passenger miles.
For the first 10 months of the year, Continental said consolidated traffic fell 5.3 percent to 74.83 billion revenue passenger miles, while mainline traffic was down 5 percent to 67.06 billion revenue passenger miles. Consolidated capacity fell 6.2 percent to 92.06 billion available seat miles, while capacity on Continental's mainline flights fell 6 percent to 81.92 billion available seat miles.
Continental also reported an October consolidated (mainline plus regional) load factor of 82.5 percent, 3.5 points above the October 2008 consolidated load factor, and a mainline load factor of 83.0 percent, 3.5 points above the October 2008 mainline load factor. The carrier reported a domestic mainline October load factor of 85.4 percent, 2.4 points above the October 2008 domestic mainline load factor, and an international mainline load factor of 80.4 percent, 4.5 points above October 2008. All four October load factors were records for the month
During the month, Continental recorded a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) on-time arrival rate of 75.1 percent and a mainline segment completion factor of 99.8 percent.
