American Airlines passenger traffic rises 3.2%

American Airlines said its June traffic rose 3.2 percent, driven by a rise in international travel.

The nation’s second-largest airline said it flew 11.25 billion revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger flown one mile, compared to 10.89 billion revenue passenger miles in June 2008.

Domestic flying rose 1.2 percent to 6.89 billion revenue passenger miles. International traffic rose 6.6 percent to 4.36 billion revenue passenger miles.

Capacity rose 1.3 percent to 12.96 billion available seat miles.

Occupancy, called load factor, rose 1.6 percentage points to 86.8 percent. Domestic load factor rose a half-percentage point to 88.6 percent, and international was up 3.4 percentage points to 80.6 percent.

For the first half of the year, American on Tuesday said traffic rose 1.3 percent to 60.9 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity fell 1.4 percent to 75.24 billion available seat miles. Load factor rose 2.1 percentage points to 80.9 percent.