BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Air Berlin Plc.(AIBEF.PK), Germany's second-largest airline, reported Friday that its traffic and capacity for the month of August increased from last year.
Revenue passenger kilometers or RPK, a measure of traffic, for the month within airberlin's worldwide flight route network increased 3 percent year-over-year to 5.41 billion.
Monthly available seat kilometers or ASK, a gauge for capacity, rose 1.5 percent to 6.06 billion from last year.
In August 2014, airberlin transported 3.47 million passengers, an increase of 2.7 percent over the corresponding month of the previous year.
The company, which last month announced a restructuring program aimed at returning it to sustainable profitability, noted that the expansion of the flights on offer resulted in a very high capacity utilization rate of 89.31 percent, i.e. an increase of 1.3 percentage points from the previous year.
For the first eight months of the year, the number of passengers edged up 0.3 percent from last year to 21.46 million. The revenue passenger kilometers for the January to August period increased 0.7 percent to 33.192 billion, and the available seat kilometers grew 2.7 percent to 39.653 billion.
In its recently closed second quarter, Air Berlin recorded a 2.9 percent increase in flights, and 3.5 percent increase in capacity. However, load factor for the quarter declined 1.3 percentage points to 82.4 percent.
Air Berlin also said previously that it will strive for narrow-body jet fleet harmonization in its entire network. The company is in a process of streamlining and restructuring the operational platforms it uses. In line with its network adjustments, the company intends to reduce its fleet by about 10 aircraft.
In Frankfurt, Air Berlin shares were gaining 0.02 euros or 1.37 percent, and trading at 1.41 euros.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX