Alaska Air Group traffic up despite storms

Alaska Air Group reported its March and Q1 2017 traffic numbers Monday, including its Alaska Airlines and Virgin America units. March saw a 5.4% increase in revenue passengers carried by the group at 3.74m, with Alaska up 7.3%, but Virgin America had a more modest 1.4% increase on March 2016. For the quarter to end March, the group flew just over 10m passengers, a 4.4% increase on the previous year. Alaska carried 5.95m, up 5.5% and Virgin America 1.83m, a 3.8% increase. Regional operations at Horizon, SkyWest and Peninsula Airlines accounted for the remaining 2.23m passengers carried by the group in Q1 2017. In RPK terms the group saw a 5.5% increase in March, on ASM capacity increase of 5.7%. Load factor edged down 0.2 percentage points to 85.4% as a result. <br/>