Northwest Airlines June passenger traffic rises

Northwest flew a total of 3 billion revenue passenger miles, up from 2.74 billion in the same month last year. A revenue passenger mile is a unit measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.

International traffic rose 9.6 percent to 3 billion revenue passenger miles, while domestic traffic fell 4.7 percent to 3.55 billion revenue passenger miles.

Consolidated capacity rose 5.9 percent to 8.37 billion available seat miles from 7.9 billion in the same month last year.

That increase included a 10.8 percent jump in international capacity to 3.39 billion available seat miles and a 3.6 percent decline in domestic capacity to 4.09 billion available seat miles.

Consolidated load factor, or occupancy, fell 1.2 percentage points to 86.8 percent.

Domestic load factor fell 0.9 percentage points to 87 percent, while international load factor decreased 1 percentage point to 88.6 percent.

So far this year, consolidated traffic is up 3.2 percent to 40.07 billion revenue passenger miles, while consolidated occupancy is up 2.8 percent to 47.86 billion available seat miles. Load factor is up 0.3 percentage points to 83.7 percent.

Northwest shares rose 11 cents to close at $5.77.