Delta, Northwest November traffic fall

ATLANTA - Delta Air Lines Inc. said on Thursday that November traffic fell at both Delta and its new subsidiary, Northwest Airlines.

Delta said it flew 4.9 percent fewer revenue passenger miles, a measure of traffic that counts one passenger flown one mile. The November systemwide total (counting Delta regional flights but not Northwest) was 8.91 billion miles, down from 9.36 billion during November 2007. International flying was the one category that increased, 7.6 percent to 3.13 billion miles.

Capacity, measured in available seat miles, fell 5.3 percent to 11.5 billion miles systemwide, from 12.15 billion a year ago.

Load factor, an industry measure of occupancy, rose to 77.4 percent from 77.1 percent.

The news was similar at Northwest, which Delta acquired at the end of October, but which is still operates as a stand-alone carrier.

Northwest's November traffic fell 7.4 percent to 5.67 billion revenue passenger miles, from 6.13 billion during November 2007. Domestic traffic was down 10 percent.

Capacity fell 4.7 percent to 7.08 billion available seat miles, from 7.43 billion a year ago.

Load factor dropped to 80.1 percent from 82.4 percent.

For the first 11 months of the year, Delta's traffic edged up 0.8 percent to 113.3 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity fell 0.3 percent to 138.87 billion available seat miles. Load factor increased to 81.6 percent from 80.7 percent.

Northwest's year-to-date traffic rose 1.5 percent to 73.16 billion revenue passenger miles, while capacity increased 1.7 percent to 87.09 billion available seat miles. Load factor edged down to 84 percent from 84.2 percent.

Shares of Delta added 14 cents to close at $8.88.

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