NEW YORK (AFX) - Copa Holdings SA, parent of Copa Airlines and AeroRepublica, on Monday reported a 25.3 percent jump in May passenger traffic on a slightly larger increase in capacity.
The Panama City, Panama-based company posted 366.7 million revenue passenger miles, up from 292.7 million a year ago. A revenue passenger mile is equal to one paying passenger flown one mile.
Capacity rose 26.6 percent to 548.2 million available seat miles from 432.9 million in the same month last year. Load factor, an industry measure of occupancy, dipped to 66.9 percent from 67.6 percent.
By segment, Copa Airlines posted traffic growth of 31.3 percent, while traffic edged up 0.5 percent at AeroRepublica. Capacity jumped 22.6 percent at Copa and 41.4 percent at AeroRepublica. Meanwhile, occupancy climbed 4.9 percentage points to 74 percent at Copa and slid 18 percentage points to 44.1 percent at AeroRepublica.
Copa Holdings fell 54 cents to end at $22.85 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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