Passenger traffic for both Pinnacle Airlines and Colgan Air increased in June compared to the same month in 2008, according to the Memphis Business Journal on Friday.
Pinnacle flew 986,882 passengers last month, which is up 7.3 percent over the 919,700 passenger flown in June 2008. Colgan flew 249,619 passengers last month, up 3.9 percent from the 240,281 that flew the airline in June 2008.
Colgan passenger volumes are up 18 percent so far this year. The airline has flown 1.3 million passengers compared to the 1.1 million it had flown by the end of June last year.
Pinnacle’s year-to-date performance is up slightly. It has flown 5.16 million passengers so far this year and it had flown 5.15 million passengers in the same period last year.
June load factor numbers for both airlines are higher than they were last year. Load factor tells how much of an airline’s overall capacity is being used.
Pinnacle used 81.7 percent of its overall capacity in June, which is up only slightly over the 81.1 percent used in the same period last year. Colgan improved its load factor by 6.9 percentage points to 62.8 percent on average, compared to 55.9 percent posted for June 2008.
Pinnacle recorded 23,266 departed flights in June this year, up 4.3 percent from the 22,307 from June 2009. Colgan flew 14.3 percent fewer flights this June. It departed 9,456 flights last month compared to the 11,039 flights departed in June 2009.
Memphis-based Pinnacle Airlines Corp. is an airline holding company and is the parent company of Pinnacle Airlines and Colgan Air .
