American Airlines March Load Factor Up

American Airlines has reported that its load factor for March 2008 was 83.9%, an increased of 1.5 points, compared to 82.4% reported for the same period in 2007.

For March 2008, traffic decreased 2.8% year over year to 11.6 billion revenue passenger miles, compared to 11.93 billion revenue passenger miles in March 2007, and capacity decreased 4.6% to 13.81 billion available seat miles, compared to 14.48 billion available seat miles in March 2007.

Domestic traffic decreased 5.9% year over year to 7.4 billion revenue passenger miles on 6.7% less capacity. International traffic increased by 3% to 4.2 billion revenue passenger miles relative to last year on a capacity decrease of 0.6%. American Airlines has boarded 8.2 million passengers, a decrease of 4%, compared to 8.6 million passengers in March 2007.

American Eagle, the regional affiliate of American Airlines, has reported a March load factor of 73.4%, down 0.7 points compared to 74.1% for the same period in 2007. Traffic decreased 9.5% year over year to 685.1 million revenue passenger miles as capacity decreased 8.6% to 933.57 available seat miles. American Eagle has boarded 1.7 million passengers in March 2008.