AirTran October passenger traffic falls

ORLANDO, Fla. - AirTran Airways, a unit of AirTran Holdings Inc., said Tuesday its October traffic fell 2.3 percent as the airline cut capacity but filled more of its available seats.

AirTran flew a total of 1.43 billion revenue passenger miles in October, down from 1.46 billion in the same month last year. A revenue passenger mile is a widely followed industry measurement accounting for one paying passenger flown one mile.

Available seat miles dropped 5.6 percent to 1.78 billion from 1.88 billion in the year-ago period.

Load factor, or occupancy, rose 2.7 percentage points to 80.5 percent.

For the first 10 months of this year, traffic rose 11.9 percent to 16.17 billion revenue passenger miles, while available seat miles increased 7.4 percent to 20.23 billion. Load factor rose 3.2 percentage points to 79.9 percent.

AirTran shares fell 48 cents, or 11.4 percent, to $3.72 in afternoon trading. The stock has ranged from $1.28 to $10 over the past year.

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