Airlines report higher February traffic

Air Canada and WestJet have both reported higher passenger traffic and better load factors for February.

Air Canada said its revenue passenger miles (RPMs) rose 1.6 per cent last month, while WestJet's traffic surged 39.9 per cent as it added more capacity.

Air Canada's load factor, which measures the percentage of available seats that are filled with paying passengers, rose to its highest February level ever of 77.9 per cent, up from the 72.6 per cent it recorded in February of last year.

WestJet's load factor for February 2005 increased 5.5 percentage points to 72.9 per cent.

WestJet managed to fill more seats per flight despite having almost 30 per cent more seats to fill than a year earlier.