HOUSTON (AFX) - Continental Airlines Inc. said Monday its June traffic grew 13.7 percent, fueled by strong gains in the carrier's Latin American routes.
The airline said overall mainline and regional traffic grew to 8.22 billion revenue passenger miles from 7.23 billion in June 2005. Revenue passenger miles refer to how many seats were sold on an airline's flights.
Overall capacity grew 10.6 percent to 9.73 billion available seat miles, while occupancy, or load factor, improved 2.3 percentage points to 84.5 percent.
The company said its Latin American traffic grew 25.1 percent in June to 961.4 million revenue passenger miles. Domestic traffic was the slowest-growing unit, up 9 percent to 3.89 billion revenue passenger miles.
Year to date, Continental said overall traffic is up 13.8 percent to 43.7 billion revenue passenger miles on 10.8 percent capacity growth to 54.37 billion available seat miles. Occupancy is up 2.1 percentage points to 80.4 percent.
Continental shares closed down 30 cents at $29.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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