Continental traffic grows in November

HOUSTON

Continental Airlines Inc. on Friday said its preliminary November traffic grew 9.8 percent from the same month of 2005, outpacing a capacity increase of 7.1 percent.

In the month, Continental flew 7.02 billion revenue passenger miles, compared with 6.4 billion revenue passenger miles in November of 2005. A revenue passenger mile is a unit equal to one paying passenger flown one mile.

Domestic traffic grew 8.1 percent to 3.53 billion revenue passenger miles as international traffic increased 12.5 percent to 2.67 billion revenue passenger miles.

Total capacity rose to 8.71 billion available seat miles from 8.14 billion available seat miles. Occupancy improved to 80.7 percent from 78.7 percent.

For the year to date, traffic increased 12.1 percent to 82.03 billion revenue passenger miles from 73.2 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity grew 9.6 percent to 101.51 billion available seat miles from 92.61 billion available seat miles, and occupancy improved to 80.8 percent from 79 percent.

Shares of Continental Airlines fell 35 cents to end at $40.29 on the New York Stock Exchange.