Despite the horrific sight last month of a passenger being dragged off a United Express flight, United reported remarkably strong traffic in April, posting a 7.7% increase year over year in overall domestic traffic. That includes a 10% traffic boost on United's mainline domestic flights, coupled with a 1.5% decrease in regional traffic. Internationally, traffic was up 7%, including a 4.2% increase in trans-Atlantic traffic, which has been trending downwards in recent months. United's traffic in other international regions was strong too, including 13% year-over-year growth in Latin America and 5.7% year-over-year growth in trans-Pacific. <br/>
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United is ramping up capacity on 18 North American routes out of its San Francisco hub, a move that appears aimed at growing competition there from Alaska Airlines and merger partner Virgin America. United has long operated one of its most important hubs at SFO, where it is the top carrier. But Alaska recently acquired San Francisco-based Virgin America and has wasted little time in expanding its schedule there. In March, Alaska announced a major expansion from the Bay Area that included 10 routes from SFO. Now, United is expanding its own capacity at the airport by adding additional flights on eight existing routes while “upgauging” to bigger aircraft on 10 others. <br/>
A judge has frozen an information request by Avianca Airlines' No. 2 shareholder, ruling against one piece of its push to stop negotiations by top shareholder Synergy Group with United Continental. The judge denied the discovery request by Kingsland Holdings in its push to have talks between Avianca and United halted. Kingsland had previously said it wanted all proceedings stopped until shareholders vote on whether to appoint an auditor to examine transactions between the airline and its controlling shareholder. Singh ruled that Kingsland had "failed to show the imminent harm it may incur should expedited discovery be denied." <br/>