Alaska Air Group ALK, the parent company of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, reported impressive traffic data for the month of March, mainly due to increased demand. In Mar 2015, the carrier transported 271,000 more passengers than compared to the same month a year ago.
The company’s consolidated airline traffic – measured in revenue passenger miles or RPMs, which imply revenue generated per mile per passenger – moved up 11.2% year over year to 2,899 million. Consolidated capacity (available seat miles/ASMs) for the month increased 12.4% from Mar 2014 to 3,365 million.
The greater rise in capacity compared to RPMs implies that load factor (percentage of seats filled by passengers) declined in Mar 2015 compared to Mar 2014. The metric fell 100 basis points (bps) from Mar 2014 to 86.1%.
In the first three months of 2015, the Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company has generated RPMs of 7,723 million (up 9.1% from the corresponding period last year) and ASMs of 9,257 million (up 10.8%). Load factor declined 130 bps year over year to 83.4%.
While the Seattle-based Alaska Air Group impressed with its March traffic numbers, Delta Air Lines DAL saw its traffic for the month being hit by foreign exchange movements. We note that both the companies are competing for market share of flights operating out of Seattle.
With March traffic updates expected in the next few days from companies like United Continental UAL and American Airlines Group AAL, it remains to be seen whether foreign exchange pressure weighs on the monthly traffic numbers of these carriers as well.
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