American Airlines’ regional affiliate American Eagle says August traffic soared 13.8 percent

American Eagle says August traffic soared 13.8 pct

FORT WORTH, Texas — American Eagle, which operates regional flights for American Airlines, said Friday that August traffic soared 13.8 percent higher compared with a year ago.

That sharply beat the 3.1 percent traffic increase on American.

Eagle said paying passengers flew 776 million miles last month, compared with 682.2 million miles in August 2009.

Eagle increased capacity by 13.2 percent, to 1.06 billion available seat miles, or miles flown times seats.

The average plane was 73.1 percent full, up from 72.7 percent a year earlier.

For the first eight months of the year, traffic rose 7 percent, capacity increased 6.6 percent, and the average occupancy rose to 72.1 percent from 71.8 percent a year ago.