Germany’s second-largest air carrier Air Berlin was able to improve its returns per seat kilometer to 5.45 euro cents in March, 4.2 percent on the previous month’s 5.23 euro cents. Although capacities were reduced by only 0.8 percent compared to March of the previous year, the number of passengers decreased by 5.6 percent to 2,053,960 (March 2008: 2,175,427). At the same time, aircraft utilization decreased by 3.7 percentage points to 74.1 percent (March 2008: 77.8 percent). The decrease in passengers is partly due to the Easter season, traditionally strong in revenues for the tourism-centered airlines, not taking place in the month of March this year.

A total of 5,469,980 passengers flew Air Berlin in the first three months of the year,  6.2 percent less than the number of 5,831,160 reported during the reference period of the previous year. Accumulated capacities, meanwhile, were reduced by 3.9 percent. The utilization rate of the airplanes decreased by 1.7 percentage points from 73.2 to 71.5 percent.

March 2009
Capacities                        2,772,694
Passengers                       2,053,960
Utilization rate in %                  74.1

March 2009 accumulated

Capacities                         7,646,149

Passengers                        5,469,980

Utilization rate in %                   71.5