Us Airways Reports April Traffic

[700UW]

Thursday May 6, 4:50 pm ET


ARLINGTON, Va., May 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- US Airways reported its April 2004 passenger traffic today.
Mainline revenue passenger miles for April 2004 increased 13.8 percent on a 5.6 percent increase in available seat miles compared to April 2003. The passenger load factor was 79.8 percent, which was the airline's highest April load factor ever and the highest domestic load factor among the major carriers this month. This represents a 5.7 percentage point increase compared to April 2003.

For the first four months of 2004, mainline revenue passenger miles increased 11.6 percent on a 6.5 percent increase in available seat miles compared to the same period in 2003. The passenger load factor for the first four months of 2004 was 72.6 percent, a 3.3 percentage point increase compared to the same period in 2003.

The three wholly owned subsidiaries of US Airways Group, Inc. -- Allegheny Airlines, Inc., Piedmont Airlines, Inc., and PSA, Inc., along with MidAtlantic Airways -- reported an 28.5 percent increase in revenue passenger miles for April 2004 on 12.6 percent more capacity compared to April 2003. The passenger load factor was 61.0 percent, a 7.5 percentage point increase compared to April 2003.

For the first quarter of 2004, revenue passenger miles for the three wholly owned US Airways Express carriers and MidAtlantic increased 10.4 percent on a 2.1 percent increase in available seat miles compared to the first quarter of 2003. The passenger load factor for the first three months of the year was 53.9 percent, a 4 percentage point increase compared to the same period in 2003.

Mainline system passenger unit revenue for April 2004 is expected to increase between 6.5 percent and 7.5 percent compared to April 2003.

US Airways ended the month of April by completing 99.6 percent of its scheduled departures.

 

[ringmaruf]

Mainline system passenger unit revenue for April 2004 is expected to increase between 6.5 percent and 7.5 percent compared to April 2003.

Stronger than I was expecting. Industry as a whole is only expected to increase between 4.5 and 5 percent.

The passenger load factor was 79.8 percent, which was the airline's highest April load factor ever and the highest domestic load factor among the major carriers this month. US Airways ended the month of April by completing 99.6 percent of its scheduled departures.

Nice work, everybody.

 

[funguy2]

A strong start to the second quarter indeed.

 

[MarkMyWords]

One thing kind of puzzles me.....the mainline load factor is 79.8% and the express load factor is only 61%. Why such a difference?

 

[ringmaruf]

One thing kind of puzzles me.....the mainline load factor is 79.8% and the express load factor is only 61%. Why such a difference?

I couldn't tell you why, but I can tell you that it's rather normal.

Continental Express reported a load factor of 70.7 percent.
American Eagle reported a load factor of 68 percent.
ASA (Delta Connection) reported a load factor of 68.4 percent.
Mesaba (Northwest Airlink) reported a load factor of 63.0 percent.

Mesaba is the most like US Express, with lots of turboprops and some RJs. The other three all have significantly fewer turboprops.

 

[ITRADE]

Rungmaruf is right, US Express has always had a lowish load factor - often hovering around only 50%.

I think much has to do with the fact that the turbos run really hot and cold on their loads. Some flights are packed; many are downright empty. And with the cities involved, you're going to see a lot of sparsely populated flights.

 

[ITRADE]

I actually think you might see a decent operating profit this quarter.

 

[MarkMyWords]

I am looking at the markets where US replaced mainline flying with express and what i see is the same laod factor on smaller airplanes. For example, PIT-CMH. The load factor on the mainline airplanes were around 60%. The idea was to better match capacity with demand and in comes the RJ's. Now we are flying around 50 seat airplanes with a 60% load factor. Wouldn't you have thought that the load factor would have moved higher, especially in mainline replacement markets. Initially, it was, but now it has floundered.

Is it an issue of pricing? If we had 100 seats on mainline and filled 60, why is it that we now have 50 seat airplanes and can only fill 30 seats?

 

[EyeInTheSky]

MarkMyWords, go figure, the CASM's on those RJ's are 3 cents higher!! Last week, an EMB-170 flew from MCO-PIT -- had 10 seats open -- 30 minutes prior to that a 737-400 went out with 11 seats open. Wouldn't one 757-200 have been enough? I don't get their RJ plans at all.

 

[Stuka Luva]

I don't get their RJ plans at all.

Oh well, fortunately you don't have to "get it".

Good news about the loads though, I knew it wouldn't be too long before someone reversed the trend of good news with some negativity.

 

[ktflyhome]

Stuka: I don't think this is negativity, I think it is curiosity. People are trying to understand and gain knowledge of how things are working.

 

[Doc]

The scary thing is that are load factors are going up significantly and we are not bringing back any help. Psgs that flew in April are not flying April why would you when you can’t get their bags there.

another problem is some of our belt systems.

For instance the bag belt in Boston can’t handle the loads on a medium day forget it when they are full it is the most embarrassing thing I have ever seen in my 23 years is a saturday in boston......

 

[Stuka Luva]

@ KT
Ok, fair enough, I'll give that to you. But even you have to admit that the near-continuous negative rhetoric on this message board can get tiresome.

 

[ClueByFour]

Is it an issue of pricing? If we had 100 seats on mainline and filled 60, why is it that we now have 50 seat airplanes and can only fill 30 seats?

I'll bet it went something like this:

"We are running 60% on mainline equipment, thus we don't have any pricing power."

"We cut it to an RJ"

"We double the average price of the flight."

"We wonder WTF the RJs are now running at 60%."

 

[TomBascom]

Is it an issue of pricing? If we had 100 seats on mainline and filled 60, why is it that we now have 50 seat airplanes and can only fill 30 seats?

Maybe people don't like small planes.

Or maybe 80% mainline load factors are a bad thing. 4 days out of 7 the plane is full. The other 3 it is two-thirds full. You've got to be turning people away who would have paid decent money if the capacity to carry them was there.

SWA doesn't run at 80%...