Air Berlin August passengers down 3.7 pct
FRANKFURT - FRANKFURT (AP) — Air Berlin PLC said Monday that its passenger numbers were down 3.7 percent in August compared with a year earlier as the economic downturn continued to weigh on air travel.
The Berlin-based airline, Germany's second largest after Deutsche Lufthansa AG, said the number of passengers it carried fell to 2.7 million from 2.8 million in August 2008.
The airline said its capacity utilization, a measure of how full airplanes are, rose to 84 percent from 82.9 percent in August last year.
The company aims to reduce its capacity, or number of airplanes flown, by 5 percent to adjust to the drop in demand.
In the first eight months of 2009, the company flew 18.3 million passengers compared with 19.3 million a year earlier, a 5.1 percent drop.
Shares of Air Berlin were 2.5 percent higher at €3.74 ($5.34) in Frankfurt morning trading.
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