United Airlines grows traffic and capacity in January as load factors fall

United Airlines saw domestic traffic climb substantially as load factors fell in January, according to the carrier's January ops report released Thursday. Domestic traffic climbed a substantial 3.8% year over year with growth coming in both mainline operations (3.8%) and regional operations (3.7%), which had been shrinking for much of 2017. Internationally, traffic dropped a marginal 0.6%, with most of the decline coming from falloffs in the Pacific and Latin American regions. Trans-Pacific traffic was down 2.3% year over year, and Latin American traffic was down 3.8%. The picture was rosier trans-Atlantic, however, where traffic was up 4.3% year over year in what is traditionally a very slow month. United's consolidated traffic in January was up 1.8% year over year. <br/>