Southwest Airlines October traffic up 2.9 percent

DALLAS - Southwest Airlines Co. said Tuesday its traffic rose 2.9 percent in October on a similar increase in capacity.

The Dallas-based carrier said traffic rose last month to 6.21 billion revenue passenger miles, from 6.03 billion a year earlier. A revenue passenger mile is an industry unit measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.

Capacity rose 2.9 percent to 8.81 billion available seat miles, from 8.57 billion in October 2007.

The carrier's load factor, a measure of occupancy, slipped 0.1 percent to 70.4 percent.

So far this year, traffic has increased 2.6 percent to 62.43 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity has been lifted 4.4 percent to 86.62 billion available seat miles, and occupancy has fallen 1.3 percentage points to 72.1 percent.

Shares rose 3 cents to $11.83 in afternoon trading.

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