JetBlue Airways Corp. said Thursday that traffic in January fell 7.1 percent and planes were less full because demand fell faster than the airline could cut capacity. JetBlue said paying passengers flew 1.93 billion miles last month, compared with 2.08 billion miles in January 2008.
Capacity fell 5.1 percent, to 2.61 billion available seat miles.Load factor, or the average percentage of seats sold on flights, slipped to 74 percent from 75.6 percent a year earlier.
The New York-based airline said 74.7 percent of its flights arrived on time last month, and 1.6 percent were canceled.
Unlike several other carriers, JetBlue did not provide an estimate of revenue per available seat times miles flown in January. That’s a closely watched measure of pricing power in the airline industry.
Shares rose 41 cents, or 7.4 percent, to $5.94 in midday trading.
