Continental marked a drop in regional operations with 7.4 percent reduction in its capacity-purchase/pro-rate fleet which now stands at 263 aircraft. During the third quarter, regionals contributed $574 million, a decline of 4.5 percent to Continental’s $241 million net profit, which was up only 1.7 percent. The regional partner expense also dropped, however, to $446 million, down 6.1 percent and for the nine months 2007 was down 1.9 percent to $1.319 billion.
Continental Express operations carried 4.6 million passengers in the quarter, down four percent and 13.5 billion for the nine months, down 1.6 percent. RPMs totaled 2.539 billion, down seven percent for the quarter and 4.2 percent for the year to date which tallied 7.4 billion.
ASMs reached 3.1 billion, down 8.8 percent for the quarter and 9.5 billion, down 4.7 percent, for the nine months. Load factor dropped 1.6 points in the quarter to 79.5 percent, and for the nine months dropped 0.4 points to 78.5 percent.
PRASM increased, however, by 4.7 percent to 17.96 cents during the quarter and 0.6 percent to 17.38 cents for the year to date. Yield also climbed, coming in at 22.59 cents for the quarter, up 2.6 percent. For the nine months, however, it dropped a percentage point to 22.13 cents.