Continental's May Numbers Prove April's Improvement Wasn't a Trend

(MoneyWatch)  After Continental's March unit revenue decreased by 19.5 percent, April's projected 12.5 to 13.5 percent decrease might have looked like a positive sign for the future to some people. It wasn't. May numbers are out, and Continental's unit revenue is predicted to have gone down 19.5 to 20.5 percent year-over-year.

As I mentioned last month, Continental's April benefited from Easter's shift into the month unlike in 2008 when it fell in March. So that made April look better than it was. It also made March look worse. With that in mind, this May drop looks downright horrendous.

While it's predicted that May will see a year-over-year decline similar to that in March, there was no lost Easter benefit in May to explain away some of the pain. There was, however, the dreaded swine flu. Continental says that the airline expects the swine flu scare to cost the airline about $30 million. They have a fairly hefty presence in Mexico thanks to their Houston hub, so they'll feel this harder than most.

But even without that, May was still bad. And it was all due to lower fares. Load factor was only down 0.3 points, so at least they did match capacity to demand fairly well. They just couldn't get people to pay much for those seats.

The pain continues.