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Air Canada's flights had a higher proportion of filled seats last month than in any previous November in history, the air carrier reported Tuesday.

The company said its load factor — a key airline industry measure that looks at passenger traffic as a percentage of total seat capacity — hit 77.2 per cent in the month, up 0.8 percentage point from the previous November best of 76.4 per cent, set last year. It achieved the gains even as seating capacity rose from a year earlier, as increased passenger traffic outpaced the rise in capacity.

«This is the third November in as many years that we have achieved a record load factor for the month, usually our slowest,» said Montie Brewer, president and chief executive of Air Canada, in a news release. «This second consecutive month of record load factors indicates that the issues impacting traffic in the third quarter are now behind us.»

Air Canada flew 2.995 billion revenue passenger miles (RPM) in November, up 4.1 per cent from a year earlier, according to the preliminary monthly traffic numbers released Tuesday. The carrier said its capacity was up 3 per cent to 3.879 billion available seat miles (ASM).

Traffic for the first 11 months of 2006 totaled 41.515 billion RPM, up 1.8 per cent from the same period in 2005. Capacity was up 0.7 per cent, to 51.130 billion ASM. Load factor rose to 81.2 per cent from 80.3 per cent.

Air Canada said that, including its Jazz affiliate, traffic was 3.301 billion RPM in November, up 5.6 per cent from a year earlier. Capacity was up 4.4 per cent, and load factor rose to 76.7 per cent from 75.8 per cent. For the year to date, traffic was up 4.6 per cent, capacity was up 3.8 per cent and load factor rose to 80.4 per cent from 79.8 per cent.

Domestic traffic on Air Canada's main airline rose 6.7 per cent in November while domestic capacity rose 3.5 per cent, resulting in a domestic load factor of 80 per cent, up from 77.6 per cent a year earlier. Including Jazz, domestic traffic was up 7.4 per cent while domestic capacity was up 4.4 per cent, lifting the load factor to 78.7 per cent from 76.5 per cent.

«In November, we reached another milestone when 58 per cent of our domestic bookings were made online, our lowest-cost distribution channel, marking a new all-time high in web-based transactions. This is by far the highest level of penetration achieved by any full service carrier in North America,» Mr. Brewer said.

«Looking forward, revenue and cost performance are on track, aided by strong future bookings and lower fuel prices,» he added.

(Globe and Mail)