Delta runs lwest october load factor among legacies

[dariencc]

The October data is out and the legacy with the lowest load factor is Delta.

Someone revive WT.





Airline YoY Chg in RPM YoY Chg in ASM Load Factor YoY Chg in Load Factor

American -1.1% (-3.7%) 79.7% 2.1 points
United 2.4% 2.7% 79.7% (-0.2 points)
Delta -1.8% (-6.5%) 77.5% 3.7 points
Continental 9.8% 7.1% 80.7% 2 points
Northwest 3.2% 1.7% 81.7% 1.3 points
Southwest 11.9% 10.5% 71.8% 0.9 points
JetBlue 11.7% 13.2% 80.8% (-1.1 points)
US Airways 1.0% (-2.3%) 77.8% 2.6 points
Alaska Airlines 2.5% 3.5% 74.5% (-0.7) points
AirTran 15.4% 19.1% 69.2% (-2.2 points)

On that note, let's go see how the folks on Wall Street are doing. Grab your coat, your scarf, the hat, the boots, and the gloves. Let's go

 

[luv2fly]

Someone revive WT.

Why? What exactly does your statement prove?

 

[Vikedog64]

Why? What exactly does your statement prove?

Just another idiot online... :down:

 

[dariencc]

Why? What exactly does your statement prove?

Never used to be one who put much stock in load factor myself. I do present this quote from WT from the thread "Delta Managment Blinks."

<<<<How ironic... DL employees will be drinking even more Koolaid - as they work on how to take enough more chinks out of US' network. US is, after all, running the lowest load factor of all of the network carriers - DESPITE ALL OF THOSE CAPACITY REDUCTIONS>>>>

I guess a week ago load factor was important but not now.

 

[GSEMAN]

The October data is out and the legacy with the lowest load factor is Delta.

Someone revive WT.





Airline YoY Chg in RPM YoY Chg in ASM Load Factor YoY Chg in Load Factor

American -1.1% (-3.7%) 79.7% 2.1 points
United 2.4% 2.7% 79.7% (-0.2 points)
Delta -1.8% (-6.5%) 77.5% 3.7 points
Continental 9.8% 7.1% 80.7% 2 points
Northwest 3.2% 1.7% 81.7% 1.3 points
Southwest 11.9% 10.5% 71.8% 0.9 points
JetBlue 11.7% 13.2% 80.8% (-1.1 points)
US Airways 1.0% (-2.3%) 77.8% 2.6 points
Alaska Airlines 2.5% 3.5% 74.5% (-0.7) points
AirTran 15.4% 19.1% 69.2% (-2.2 points)

On that note, let's go see how the folks on Wall Street are doing. Grab your coat, your scarf, the hat, the boots, and the gloves. Let's go

WOW!! The best change in load factor! This is good news for us we have improved more than the others.

 

[wings396]

As nice as a high load factor looks, it doesn't equal a profit. Yeild tells more of a true story than load factors do. You can have a LGA-MCO flight with a 95% load factor, but if the fares are crap, it means nothing. Obviously the CASM plays a big role in all of this too. I have seen many flights with load factors in the 80%'s that were yanked due to a small profit margin.

 

[Rhino]

Look at numbers again. Who improved significantly more than any other carrier? Yield is not everything.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Ah, the danger of believing everything you read.....

Reuters seems to have just pulled out the first numbers they saw in each company's press release. Unfortunately, what they seem to miss is that different airlines report traffic numbers differently. This leads to apples/oranges comparisons.

Obviously, since Southwest, JetBlue, etc don't have express operations or feed, their numbers could be called "mainline" only. Others, like US Airways and Continental, report consoladated mainline plus express numbers, then break it down. Delta reports consolidated but breaks down regions by mainline/express but not the system number. American reports mainline and Eagle numbers in separate press releases. Finally, United doesn't say whether their reported number is mainline or consolidated - leaving the reader to guess.

The upshot is that making an apples to apples comparison is not easy. One can't just take the press releases, quote some numbers, and paint an accurate picture - but that's exactly what Reuters did. Why does it matter? Because express operations routinely have a lower load factor than mainline, which would make consolidated load factor lower than mainline. So comparing one airline's consolidated numbers to another's mainline only numbers is actually misleading.

So here is the list using mainline load factors only, except for United where it's impossible to determine.

Airtran - 69.2% (-2.2 pts)
Alaska - 74.5% (-0.7 pts)
American - 79.7% (+2.1 pts)
Continental - 81.1% (+2.1 pts)
Delta - 78.9% (+4.7 pts)
Frontier - 72.8% (-0.7 pts)
JetBlue - 80.8% (-1.1 pts)
Northwest - 82.4 (+1.3 pts)
Southwest - 71.8% (+1.9 pts)
United - 79.9% (-0.8 pts)***
US Airways - 78.3% (+2.3 pts)

***United does not specify whether mainline or consolidated

Jim