American Airlines' July passenger traffic dips on weaker international travel

American Airlines’ passenger traffic dipped slightly in July compared with a year ago, with the company booking the biggest declines on its trans-Atlantic and Latin America routes, according to data released Tuesday. American’s overall traffic fell 0.3% to 21.8b revenue passenger miles, with declines in its domestic, Latin American and Atlantic service. Those were partially offset by a 28.7% increase in traffic across the Pacific and a 3.9% increase in traffic on the company’s regional airlines. The drop in traffic came as American’s overall capacity, measured in available seat miles, increased by 2.3%. Together, those factors combined to drive down the company’s July load factor by 2.1 to 85.2%, meaning the carrier’s planes were flying less full on average compared with a year ago. American has indicated it will slow down its capacity growth over the second half of this year as increased competition and currency weakness in several key foreign markets puts pressure on the company’s revenues.<br/>