Qantas Airways is carrying more passengers than a year ago but its revenue seat factor is falling, new figures from the airline show.
Traffic statistics for October show that Qantas carried 8.8 per cent more passengers compared to the equivalent month in 2009, and revenue passenger kilometres increased 5.4 per cent 9.38 billion.
Qantas shares dropped 2 cents to close at $2.61.
Revenue passenger kilometres refers to the number of paying passengers carried multiplied by the number of kilometres flown.
Because the number of available seat kilometres rose more than six per cent, the revenue seat factor dropped 0.8 point.
Revenue Seat Factor is the percentage of revenue passenger kilometres to available seat kilometres.
The drop was reflected also in the year to date figures, which showed the revenue seat factor declining 0.8 point.
For the year to date the number of passengers Qantas carried was up 8.8 per cent to 15,290, while revenue passenger kilometres increased 6.4 per cent.
The airline, which runs the Qantas, QantasLink and Jetstar brands, has been recovering since engine concerns with its A380 fleet forced the grounding of some aircraft last month.
The latest figures show that for the year to date Jetstar Asia is carrying 44.4 per cent more passengers, while Jetstar International had a 6.8 per cent boost to passenger numbers.
QantasLink passenger numbers were up 14.9 per cent, Qantas domestic was up 5.2 per cent, and Qantas international was up 2.5 per cent compared to the equivalent year to date figure 12 months ago.
AAP