Southwest posts 8.8 percent increase in September passenger traffic

Southwest September traffic rises

DALLAS — Southwest Airlines Co. said Wednesday its September traffic rose 8.8 percent, as the airline cut capacity but filled a greater percentage of its seats.

Southwest flew a total of 5.8 billion revenue passenger miles, or one seat flown one mile with a paying customer, up from 5.3 billion in September 2008.

Available seat miles, or capacity, fell 7.8 percent to 7.7 billion from the 8.4 billion. Load factor, or occupancy, rose to 74.7 percent from 63.4 percent in the year-ago period.

For the first nine months of the year, revenue passenger miles rose 0.1 percent to 56.3 billion, while available seat miles fell 4.3 percent to 74.5 billion and load factor rose 3.3 percentage points to 75.6 percent.