US. Continental Airlines’ November mainline traffic rose +8.7%. Its consolidated load factor remained 2.2 percentage points below its estimated breakeven level at 75.3%, but nevertheless this was still improved by 5.5 points from November 2002.
In a statement this week, the airline said it flew 4.75 billion mainline Revenue Passenger Miles (RPMs) last month, up +8.7% from 4.37 billion a year ago. Continental Airlines also reported a record load factor of 76.3% on international mainline routes, up 7.2 points above November 2002.
Domestic mainline traffic was 2.9 billion RPMs in November 2003, up +6.7% year-on-year, and capacity on domestic routes, as well as international routes, was slightly up.
Continental’s regional operations (Continental Express) set a record November load factor of 70.2%, 7.1 points above the November 2002 load factor. Regional RPMs were 523.6 million, representing a traffic increase of +51.7%.
