AirTran says June traffic rose 7.4 percent, as occupancy hit 86.4 percent

AirTran June traffic up 7.4 percent

ORLANDO, Fla. — AirTran Airways said on Tuesday that its June traffic jumped 7.4 percent, setting a company record for the month as well as for the second quarter.

The airline said it flew 1.89 billion revenue passenger miles last month, or one paying passenger flown one mile. That was up from 1.76 billion revenue passenger miles in June 2009.

Capacity rose 4 percent to 2.19 billion available seat miles, from 2.11 billion a year earlier.

With traffic growing faster than the airline added seats, its planes were more full. Load factor rose 2.8 percentage points to 86.4 percent for the month.

For the first half of the year, traffic rose 7.7 percent to 9.59 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity rose 5.4 percent to 11.94 billion available seat miles. Load factor rose 1.7 percentage points to 80.3 percent.

Shares of AirTran parent AirTran Holdings Inc. rose 8 cents to $4.84 in morning trading.