Austrian Passenger Growth Below Expectations
By transporting a total of 585,275 passengers last month, the Austrian Airlines Group reported a 9.2 % increase on January 2002. This result was lower than the anticipated rise, however. The month of January 2002 continued to be heavily influenced by the extremely negative level of traffic demand following the events of September 11, and was 3.3 % down on the figure for January 2001.
The Group operated a total of 11,600 flights in January 2003 - slightly up (+ 0.8 %) on the weak figure for January 2002. Available seat kilometers on scheduled services were increased by 21.0 % overall, particularly in the long-haul sector (+ 37.1 %). Due to an increase in passenger kilometers of 29.1 %, the company improved its load factor by 4.1 percentage points to reach 65.3 %. Including charter traffic, available seat kilometers were increased by 27.5 %, while demand for passenger kilometers rose by a full 33.0 %. Accordingly, the overall load factor rose by 2.8 percentage points to 67.5 %.
——-