US Airways Sees Further Unit Revenue Erosion in June

(MoneyWatch)  As usual, Continental came out with its June unit revenue predictions as soon as the month closed and US Airways came out with theirs a few days later. While Continental's numbers didn't look much different than previous months, US Airways saw further erosion in unit revenue.

In May, Continental saw unit revenue decline 19.9 percent. That falls squarely within the June prediction of being down 19.5 to 20.5 percent for the month. It wasn't really news, and in fact, I didn't even write about it.

But at US Airways, it was a different story. In May, unit revenues were down 14 to 16 percent including ancillary revenue, but without that, it was down 18 to 20 percent. Now in June, unit revenues are said to have dropped 18 percent including ancillary revenue and 20 percent without.

So fares aren't dropping for US Airways much more than they were in May, but when you include ancillary revenues, the number is getting worse. What exactly is going on here? There weren't any changes during that month that I can see impacting this number. It's possible that it's a one-time occurrence, but I imagine we would have heard if that were the case.

Either way, things still don't look good in June for anyone.