American Airlines Traffic Reported Traffic Fell 8.2 Percent in December

American Airlines said Monday that traffic fell 8.2 percent in December compared with the year-earlier month, with both domestic and international business slowing. The airline also operated fewer flights, as it decided in the summer to reduce capacity because of then-high fuel prices, resulting in occupancy levels slightly higher than a year ago.

American, a unit of Fort Worth-based AMR Corp., said domestic traffic fell 9.6 percent while international declined 5.7 percent compared with a year earlier. The sharpest decline in international travel was trans-Atlantic, off 8 percent, compared with a decline of 5.2 percent to Latin America and 0.5 percent in the Pacific region.

Traffic is measured in miles flown by paying customers. The airline carried 7.3 million passengers, down from 7.9 million a year earlier.

Capacity shrank 8.6 percent from the year before, and the average flight had 79.2 percent of seats sold, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from December 2007. Capacity was reduced most sharply in the United States.

For the full year, traffic fell 4.8 percent – 7.3 percent in the U.S., and a 0.2 percent decline on international routes. Capacity was trimmed 3.8 percent, with nearly all the cuts occurring in the last few months.

American said it carried 92.8 million passengers in 2008, down from 98.2 million in 2007.