American Airlines reported its systemwide traffic for December increased 14.0 percent from December 2001, on a capacity increase of 4.6 percent. This is a decrease in traffic of 5.7 percent and a decrease in capacity of 11.4 percent compared to the same month in 2000. The system load factor was 73.3, up 6.1 points from a year ago and up 4.4 points from 2000.

Due to the events of Sept. 11 of 2001, comparisons of 2002 versus 2001 do not provide a good historical benchmark. In order to provide a more meaningful comparison, the attached chart also includes a comparison of December 2002 traffic results with December 2000.

International traffic in December was up 17.2 percent year over year but down 7.9 percent compared to December 2000. International capacity was up 6.1 percent over December 2001, but down 15.1 percent from 2000. Domestic traffic was up 12.8 percent year over year for December on a capacity increase of 4.0 percent, but domestic traffic was down 4.8 percent from December 2000 on a capacity decrease of 9.9 percent.

American‘s on-time performance in December was 81.4 percent, compared to 80.2 in December 2001. The airline’s completion factor - the number of flights flown expressed as a percentage of the number of flights scheduled - was 98.3 percent, compared to 95.7 percent in the same month last year.

American boarded 8.0 million passengers in December, up 11.4 percent from December 2001 and down 6.4 percent from December 2000.

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