Airlines & Routes

Ryanair reported that traffic grew 19% in March 2008 and that the load factor for the month was reported at 79%, up 1pt compared to the same period last year.

United Airlines reported its preliminary traffic results for March 2008. The company reported a March passenger load factor of 82.7%. Traffic decreased in March by 2.7% on unchanged capacity compared with the same period in 2007.

From 4 April 2008, Ethiopian Airlines and Lufthansa passengers can fly with either airline on routes between Frankfurt and the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Customers will then have a choice of seven flights per week on this route. A Lufthansa Airbus A300-600 will depart from Frankfurt for Addis Ababa four times weekly, with a stopover

American Airlines reported a March load factor of 83.9%, an improvement of 1.5 points compared to the same period last year. Traffic decreased 2.8% year over year as capacity decreased 4.6%.

GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A. released preliminary passenger statistics for the month of March 2008. Consolidated traffic increased 43.1%, consolidated capacity increased 55% and consolidated load factor for March decreased 4.7 pts to 57.7%.

Alaska Air Group reported March passenger traffic for its subsidiaries, Alaska Airlines (Alaska) and Horizon Air (Horizon). Alaska’s March traffic increased 10.7%, capacity was 5.2% higher than in March 2007 and load factor for the month was 80.8% compared to 76.8% in March 2007. Horizon’s March traffic increased 3.5%, capacity during March was 0.5% lower

WestJet announced March traffic results with a record load factor of 86.6%. This was accompanied by a capacity increase of 19.6% and an improvement in traffic of 21.7%.

System traffic in March 2008 increased 2.3% over March 2007 with a capacity increase of 1.5%. System load factor was reported at 83.6% up 0.6 pts compared to March 2007.

In March 2008, passenger capacity was 1.6% below March 2007, traffic fell by 2.8%. This resulted in a passenger load factor decrease of 0.9 points versus last year, to 75.4%.

Continental reported that consolidated traffic increased 4.3% compared to March 2007, consolidated capacity increased 4.6% and the consolidated load factor was reported at 82.3%, compared to 82.6% in March 2007.