United Continental Holdings Inc., the largest carrier at Denver International Airport, on Monday reported traffic and capacity fell in April, as it grapples with travel cuts from oil-patch corporate customers, along with lower surcharges.
The Chicago-based company, the No. 3 U.S. airline by traffic, reported a 0.9 percent decline in capacity in April along with a 1.9 percent decline in traffic, as measured by revenue-passenger miles.
United still expects the key passenger-revenue metric, which measures how much a passenger pays to fly a mile, to fall in the range of 6.5 percent to 8.5 percent in the second quarter.
The company had blamed the second-quarter projected decline on soft April bookings, overcapacity in international routes and the stronger U.S. dollar. Domestic traffic edged up 0.6 percent, while international traffic fell 3 percent, with declines across regions. Load factor, or percentage of seats filled, fell 0.9 percentage points in April to 80.5 percent.
