The carriers that usually report monthly PRASM estimates have done so, and below is a summary of the results. Overall, they’re pretty good, especially when one considers that the comparisons for US Airways, Southwest, and JetBlue were less favorable in December than November.
Southwest came out with the biggest increase at 7%, and I have to think that a good chunk of that improvement is coming from the carrier’s efforts to optimize its schedule and shift capacity, as Southwest saw the biggest increase in load factor of the four carriers – a 6.5 point increase to 76.2%. Plus, Southwest has not been adding cities with new planes – they’ve cut routes that don’t perform all that well, and that capacity can be shifted into new stations like LaGuardia and Boston.
Since Continental revises its monthly estimates with final numbers, here is a graph of those results:
So, we are absolutely seeing some strong improvements here, and comparisons should turn positive as revenues improve, but also because they will be off 2009′s simply horrendous numbers. But nevertheless, progress is good.
I find it alarming that Southwest is the only carrier sporting a positive number. At least the trend is positive industry wide.