Pinnacle Airlines Corp. said its Pinnacle Airlines subsidiary saw March traffic and occupancy rise in March.
Revenue passenger miles rose 2.9 percent to 418.9 million from 407.1 million in March 2009, the company said late Wednesday. A revenue passenger mile is an industry unit measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.
Pinnacle Airlines' capacity, or available seat miles, fell 4.2 percent in March to 527.2 million from 550.4 million in the same month a year ago.
Load factor, or occupancy, rose 5.4 percentage points to 79.4 percent from 74 percent a year earlier.
Year-to-date, revenue passenger miles fell 2.8 percent to 1.06 billion from 1.09 billion a year earlier, while available seat miles fell 7.6 percent to 1.46 billion from 1.58 billion a year earlier and load factor rose 3.6 percentage points to 72.6 percent from 69 percent a year earlier.
Pinnacle Airlines Corp. is the parent company of Pinnacle Airlines and Colgan Air. Pinnacle Airlines operates connecting service for Delta Air Lines Inc. Colgan Air operates as Continental Connection, United Express and US Airways Express.
