Cargo ton miles down 22.3pc

Continental Airlines has announced a December 2008 cargo revenue ton miles of 71.65 million, down 22.3 per cent compared with the same month a year, the Shipping Gazette reported.

During the fourth quarter 2008, Continental raised US$196 million in cash, after sales commissions, through the sale of 12.6 million shares at an average price to the public at $15.84 a share. Including the proceeds from this, Continental ended the fourth quarter of last year with an unrestricted cash and short-term investments balance of $2.65 billion, a statement from the carrier said.

But an improved consolidated (mainline plus regional) passenger load factor was achieved at 79.9 per cent, 1.2 points above the December 2007 consolidated load factor.

In December, the carrier achieved a mainline load factor of 80.4 per cent, 1.6 points above the December 2007 mainline load factor, and a domestic mainline December load factor of 84.0 per cent, 2.6 points higher year on year. In addition, the airline's international mainline load factor of 76.6 per cent was up 0.5 points.

Cargo revenue ton miles at 71.65 million were down 22.3 per cent in December 2008 compared with the same month a year earlier.

During the reporting period, Continental flew 7.1 billion consolidated revenue passenger miles (RPMs) against 8.9 billion consolidated available seat miles (ASMs), resulting in a consolidated traffic decrease of 6.7 per cent and a capacity decrease of 8.1 per cent as compared to December 2007.

In December 2008, Continental flew 6.3 billion mainline RPMs and 7.9 billion mainline ASMs, resulting in a mainline traffic decrease of 7.3 per cent and a mainline capacity decrease of 9.0 per cent compared to the same month the previous year. Domestic mainline traffic was 3.3 billion RPMs, down 9.3 per cent from December 2007 and domestic mainline capacity was four billion ASMs, down 12.1 per cent from December 2007.

Consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile (RASM) is estimated to have increased between 3.5 and 4.5 per cent last month, while mainline passenger RASM is estimated to have increased between four and five per cent compared to December 2007.

For November 2008, consolidated passenger RASM increased 1.2 per cent compared to November 2007, while mainline passenger RASM increased 2.4 per cent compared to November 2007.

Source: Schednet