Delta Air Lines’ passenger traffic down by 7.5% in Dec 2009

Delta Air Lines’ passenger traffic falls by 7.5% in December 2009; capacity down by 8.4%

Delta Air Lines has announced that its system-wide passenger traffic (including the operations of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines) for December 2009 dropped by 7.5% compared to December 2008.

In December 2009, Delta Air Lines flew 12.49 million passengers – down by 7.5% from 13.51 million passengers that the airline carried in December 2008.

In a statement, Delta Air Lines said its capacity (or, total number of flights and available seats) fell by 8.4% in December 2009.

Delta Air Lines, based in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, is the biggest airline in the world after it merged with the US-based Northwest Airlines.

The airline’s operating details for December 2009 include Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and also flights operated under contract-carrier arrangements.

The system-wide passenger traffic for December 2009 went down by 7.5% to 14.69 billion revenue passenger miles (RPMs) from 15.87 billion revenue passenger miles in December 2008. While the domestic traffic decreased by 6.3% to 9.03 billion revenue passenger miles in December 2009, international traffic dropped by 9.3% to 5.65 billion revenue passenger miles.

Delta Air Lines’ system capacity witnessed a fall by 8.0% to 18.08 billion available seat miles (ASMs) in December 2009 from 19.65 billion available seat miles in December 2008.

While the carrier’s domestic capacity went down by 4.0% to 11.26 billion available seat miles in December 2009 compared to the same month a year ago, international capacity declined by 13.9% to 6.82 billion available seat miles.

The airline said its system-wide load factor (the load factor is a measure of how many available seats are filled on flights) increased by 0.4 points to 81.2% in December 2009 from the same period a year ago. While the domestic load factor declined by 2.0 points to 80.2%, international load factor increased by 4.2 points to 82.9% % in December 2009, compared to the same month in 2008.

Delta Air Lines said in the statement that its system-wide cargo ton miles rose by 25.5% to 221.01 million in December 2009 from 176.08 million in December 2008.

Earlier in January 2010, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had authorised Delta Air Lines to merge with Northwest Airlines, enabling both airlines to merge flight schedules and reservation systems.

The Federal Aviation Administration also had granted the final approval for Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines to fly under a single operating certificate. This approval lets the two carriers use organizational structure and common technical manuals for all employees.