May traffic results clip United Continental’s wings

On the heels of a passenger-dragging scandal that made headlines around the world, United Continental is flying lower Wednesday after reporting a year-on-year dip in a key traffic metric. United Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Continental, reported an 0.9 point drop in its consolidated passenger load factor for May 2017, compared to the same month a year earlier, from 82.5% to 81.6%. That figure measures what proportion of capacity was used. The biggest decline in load factor was seen in United’s Pacific operations, where it dropped 4.4 points from 82.4% in May 2016 to 78% last month, according to the airline. Year to date, United’s consolidated load factor is down 2.8 points in the Pacific region versus a year ago, from 80.2% to 77.4%. The company cited “incremental weakness” in that region, which it blamed on “unfavourable supply and demand dynamics in China and Hong Kong.”<br/>