US Airways Sees February Unit Revenue Declines

(MoneyWatch)  Following on the heels of Continental, US Airways has released its guidance for February revenue numbers and once again, the results are not pretty. This time, it actually provides a very good way of seeing the impact of lower demand.

Unlike Continental, US Airways didn't see much of a change in load factor for February. In fact, it was down only 0.2 points from 76.7 to 76.5 percent year-over-year. On the revenue side, however, unit revenues were down 5 to 7 percent year-over-year. That number was only as good as it was because of their ancillary revenue efforts. If you ignore that, then unit revenues were down 9 to 11 percent.

Since unit revenue takes into account both the fare paid and the number of people onboard, this is a good example to look at. The story here is that US Airways had to resort to discounting to encourage enough people to get onboard to stay as full as they were last year. Demand continues to weaken. Stay tuned for more depressing news.