The number of domestic and international passengers flying on U.S. airlines decreased 4.1 percent in August compared with a year earlier, a federal report shows.
The 2.8 million drop was the 17th consecutive month of passenger-traffic declines, according to the report released Friday by the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Southwest Airlines, Denver’s third-largest carrier, was the biggest on the national scene, carrying more total-system and more domestic passengers for the first eight months of 2009 than any other airline.
Southwest had 68 million revenue passengers boarding its planes January through August, down 3.7 percent from the same period in 2008, but 10 million more than the next-highest carrier, American Airlines. Ann Schrader, The Denver Post
