Airlines & Routes

Continental Airlines reported a January consolidated (mainline plus regional) load factor of 73.2, 3.6 points below the January 2008 consolidated load factor. Consolidated traffic decreased 11.0% and capacity decreased 6.5% as compared to January 2008.

Air Berlin is extending its long-range services and will be offering flights to China in time for the Chinese New Year in co-operation with Hainan Airlines, China

Aer Lingus and United Airlines announced an innovative extension of their relationship on select long haul services between Europe and North America. This partnership will capitalize on the growth opportunities presented by the Open Skies agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) by opening new transatlantic non-stop services. The partners will

easyJet released that it is opening 14 new routes across Europe, for summer 2009. Nine of the new routes will operate from UK regional airports, giving travellers even more choice of popular destinations. As part of the expansion, easyJet will base an additional aircraft at Liverpool from 1 June 2009 and at Manchester from 4

Air Malta and bmi have signed an agreement by which bmi will codeshare on Air Malta

For the month of December 2008, Copa Holdings’ system-wide passenger traffic increased 16.5%, while capacity increased 20.0%. System load factor for December 2008 was 74.2%, a 2.2 percentage point decrease when compared to December 2007.

Iberia reported that total capacity decreased by 5.7% in December 2008 and traffic dropped by 7.0% compared to the same period in 2007. The load factor stood at 76.0%, 1.1 points down on last year.

Lufthansa released that in the twelve months from January through December, a total of about 57 million passengers took flights with Lufthansa, an increase of 1.2% on the year-earlier level. Capacity in the same period was raised by 4.9%, while traffic rose by 3.5%. The load factor fell by 1.1 percentage points to 78.6%.

Norwegian reported that total passenger traffic increased by 20% compared to 2007, capacity increased by 25% and the load factor was 74% a decrease of 3 percentage point compared to the same period in 2007.

SAS Group’s traffic decreased by 12.5% during December 2008 and seat capacity was down 10.2% vs 2007. SAS Group carried 2.2 million passengers in December, down 3.0% vs 2007. Total passenger load factor in December was down by 1.7 p.u. to 64,8%.