Delta Air Lines Group Inc. reported Wednesday a 3 percent boost in March passenger traffic despite trailing last year’s pace through the first quarter.
The Atlanta-based carrier reported flying 10.2 billion domestic revenue passenger miles in March, up from 9.93 billion in the same period a year ago. A revenue passenger mile is a standard industry measure of traffic, multiplying the number of paying passengers by the number of miles flown.
Domestic capacity shrank just shy of 1 percent while Delta’s load factor, or percentage of seats filled, grew to 85.4 percent from 82.4 percent a year ago.
For the first three months of 2010, domestic traffic for Delta fell 0.9 percent to 26.6 billion revenue passenger miles from 26.8 billion. Capacity shrank 2.4 percent as load factor topped 80 percent, up from 79 percent a year ago.
