Delta's October traffic fell 6.5 percent

Delta Air Lines says October traffic fell 6.5 percent as capacity dropped 8.3 percent

• On 12:40 pm EST, Thursday November 5, 2009

ATLANTA (AP) -- Delta Air Lines Inc. said it cut its flying capacity by 8.3 percent in October, as traffic fell 6.5 percent from October 2008.

The world's biggest airline operator said it and its Northwest and regional airline subsidiaries flew 15.3 billion revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger flown one mile. That was down from 16.37 billion revenue passenger miles a year earlier.

Capacity fell to 18.18 billion available seat miles, from 19.82 billion a year earlier.

With capacity falling faster than traffic, Delta's planes were 1.6 percentage points fuller, at 84.2 percent.

Airlines have been reducing flying as demand has fallen, especially for business travel, which drives international flying. International traffic fell 9.7 percent on a 13.6 percent drop in capacity. Pacific traffic dropped 16.1 percent, while Atlantic traffic was down 9.1 percent.

Domestic traffic fell 4.4 percent on a 4.6 percent drop in domestic capacity.

For the first 10 months of the year, Delta said systemwide traffic fell 6.7 percent to 160.69 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity fell 6.1 percent to 195.16 billion available seat miles. Load factor dropped 0.6 percentage points to 82.3 percent.

Delta shares rose 5 cents to $7.21 in midday trading.

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