WestJet's Passenger Traffic Up 22% In August

Calgary, Alberta (AHN) - Canadian budget airline WestJet posted a 22.4 percent increase in passenger traffic increased 22.4% at 1.39 billion revenue passenger miles in August as against 1.14 billion over the same month last year.

Redorbit.com reported that discount carrier's capacity rose 21.9 percent to 1.58 billion available seat miles, compared to 1.29 billion available seat miles in 2007.

The month's load factor was 88.4 percent, an increase of 0.4 points, compared to 88 percent in same month last year.

"We are extremely pleased with our record load factor for August. Year over year, we flew over 145,000 more guests this August," Sean Durfy, WestJet CEO, said in a statement Thursday as cited by the Canadian Press.

WestJet boosted its capacity by 20.3 percent in the first eight months, and passenger traffic by 19.5 percent, which is a slight decrease in load factor to 81.6 percent from 82.2 percent over the same period last year.