honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 5:38 p.m., Friday, September 5, 2008

Hawaiian Airlines boosts passenger count in August

Advertiser Staff

Hawaiian Airlines Inc., the state's largest air carrier, said it carried about 81,000 more passengers in August compared to the same month a year earlier as it added more interisland flights.

The carrier reported 725,272 passengers during the month. That compared with 644,278 a year earlier.

The average number of seats it filled on flights was lower, however.

The Honolulu-based airline said the percentage of its seats occupied on flights dropped to 83.8 percent in August from 87.4 percent a year earlier.

It said the decline occurred because of the expanded interisland schedule and because it raised fares on its Mainland flights, resulting in a lower load factor.

As a result, the number of revenue passenger miles -- a metric that captures how many miles paying passengers were flown -- fell by 4.2 percent to 684.7 million miles.