Massive Snow Means Less Airline Capacity in February

(MoneyWatch)  I've written a lot about revenues and storm impacts from February, but I really haven't focused on capacity. Now that all the February numbers are in (almost), let's talk about how much capacity shrank.

Notice that I said that *almost* all February traffic numbers are in. JetBlue is having trouble, and doesn't expect to have numbers out until next week. [JetBlue numbers have been updated.] See, they transitioned to a new reservation system and they're still trying to learn the ropes on this thing. So let's just take a look at this without their numbers.

Only two airlines saw capacity increases, and they aren't surprises: Allegiant and AirTran both increased but everyone else shrunk a lot. Southwest led the way with an 8.7 percent reduction. Delta, United, and US Airways all saw reductions of greater than 5 percent. American was at 4.2 percent and Continental was at 3.8 percent.

Some of these declines were due to the inclement weather that caused massive cancellations, while others were simply thanks to good old-fashioned capacity restraint. When capacity stays down at reasonable levels, fares go up and airlines are happy. With some of the projected year-over-year numbers I've seen for March revenues, profitability may not be that far away.

Here's the February roundup. These are year-over-year comparisons for February 2010 vs February 2009. ASMs are "Available Seat Miles" (a measure of total potential passenger capacity), RPMs are Revenue Passenger Miles (a measure of filled seats and revenue earned), and Load Factor measures the relationship between the two:

Airline	ASMs	RPMs	Load Factor
AirTran	4.2%	5.4%	+0.9 pts
Alaska*	(2.4%)	5.9%	+6.3 pts
Allegiant	17.6%	19.1%	+1.2 pts
American*	(4.2%)	(2.2%)	+1.5 pts
Continental	(3.8%)	3.3%	+5.2 pts
Delta	(6.1%)	(2.6%)	+2.8 pts
JetBlue	2.7%	2.7%	N/C
Southwest	(8.7%)	(2.3%)	+4.8 pts
United	(5.3%)	2.1%	+5.7 pts
US Airways#	(5.6%)	(4.8%)	+0.7 pts

*Does not include regional operations #Only includes wholly-owned regional subsidiaries

[Photo via Flickr user swanksalot]