Struggling airlines had solid summer

NEW YORK, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- It was a solid summer for struggling U.S. airlines, which reported record August business as a result of strong demand and reduced capacity.

With summer about over and leisure travel tailing off, the Wall Street Journal said, airlines will get a good reading this month on the relative strength of business travel.

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"Early indications are traffic looks good but the real question is the fall," said Ray Neidl, an analyst with Blaylock & Partners in New York.

American Airlines said traffic edged down 1.7 percent but reduced capacity filled a record 79.5 percent of its seats. Continental Airlines said traffic grew 1.7 percent in August to 5.85 billion passenger miles.

Southwest Airlines said its traffic increased 3.4 percent to 4.5 billion passenger miles. AirTran Airways said its passenger traffic grew a huge 32.6 percent in August to 689.1 million passenger miles. US Airways said revenue-passenger miles for August fell but passenger load factor was 80.8 percent, a 3.7 percentage-point increase.