Regional airline operator ExpressJet Holdings Inc. said January traffic rose 15 percent as the carrier flew more for Continental Airlines Inc., its main customer.
ExpressJet said late Monday that in January it flew 611 million revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger one mile, up from 530 million in January 2009.
Capacity rose 9 percent to 849 million available seat miles, from 777 million a year earlier. Load factor, or occupancy, rose 3.8 percentage points to 72 percent.
ExpressJet flew 54,867 block hours as Continental Express. Its corporate aviation division also flew 4,234 block hours, including 3,229 under a short-term arrangement with United Airlines that began on Dec. 1.
Block hours are the time from when an aircraft leaves its departure gate to the time it reaches its destination gate.
During the month, ExpressJet revenue passenger miles (RPM) totaled 611 million, and available seat miles (ASM) flown were 849 million. Â ExpressJet's January load factor, operating as Continental Express, was 72%. The company flew 54,867 block hours and operated 28,863 departures during the month as Continental Express. ExpressJet operated an average of 210 aircraft within its Continental Express operation during January 2010.
ExpressJet ended January 2010 with a fleet of 244 aircraft consisting of 208 operating as Continental Express, and 30 flying within Corporate Aviation (charter), including 10 operating as United Express. The remaining 6 aircraft were in various modification lines preparing for the multiyear arrangement that begins with United in May 2010.
ExpressJet Holdings operates several divisions designed to leverage the management experience, efficiencies and economies of scale present in its subsidiaries, including ExpressJet Airlines, Inc. and ExpressJet Services, LLC. ExpressJet Airlines serves 130 scheduled destinations in North American and the Caribbean with approximately 1,100 departures per day.
