United Airlines Traffic for September fell 9.2%

United Airlines reported that its traffic for September fell 9.2%, while its load factor decreased by 0.5 points from last year. Total scheduled traffic for September declined 9.2% to 8.33 billion revenue passenger miles or RPMs from 9.18 billion RPMs in the prior year month.

The airline said the traffic for North America declined 9.3%, while the Pacific sector declined 20.8% from last year. Atlantic reported traffic increase of 7.6%, whereas Latin America traffic declined 9.3%. Total scheduled capacity fell 8.6% to 10.46 billion available seat miles or ASMs from 11.44 billion ASMs in the previous year month.

North America reported a decrease in capacity of 10.8% from last year, Pacific dropped 16.6% from September 2007 and capacity in the Latin American sector fell 2.2%. However, for the Atlantic sector, capacity rose 11.4%. Passenger load factor for September decreased 0.5 points to 79.7% from 80.2% in September 2007.

North American sector reported that its load factor rose 1.4 points. The Pacific posted a drop of 3.9 points, Atlantic a decrease of 2.9 points, and for the Latin American sector, load factor slipped 5.3 points.

Total system traffic was 8.37 billion RPMs, down 8.9% from 9.18 billion RPMs. Total system capacity declined 8.3% year-over-year to 10.50 billion ASMs from 11.46 billion ASMs.

For the year-to-date period, traffic fell 4.5% to 85.44 billion RPMs from 89.49 billion RPMs in the prior year period. Capacity declined 1.9% to 104.8 billion from 106.9 billion, while passenger load factor decreased 2.2 points to 81.5% from 83.7% last year. UAUA closed Friday's regular trading session at $8.11, down $1.00 or 10.98%. In the after-hours, the shares further lost 3 cents.