FORT WORTH, Texas -American Eagle, the regional-flying affiliate of American Airlines, said Monday that November traffic rose 7.2 percent, faster than the airline could add seats.
The airline said paying passengers flew 803.2 million miles last month, up from 749.5 million miles in November 2010.
Eagle boosted passenger-carrying capacity by 5.8 percent, to 1.09 billion available seat miles, or seats times miles flown. Airlines can increase capacity by adding flights, using bigger planes or flying longer routes.
The average Eagle flight was 73.9 percent full, up 1 percentage point from a year ago.
Eagle and American Airlines are owned by AMR Corp., which filed for bankruptcy protection last week. AMR was in the process of spinning off Eagle as a separate company early next year, but that plan has been delayed by the bankruptcy filing.
AMR shares rose about 3 cents to close at about 42 cents.
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