American Airlines Group (AAL +1.66%) is reporting the first set of monthly metrics in its very brief history as a new company. The carrier, formed from the merger of American Airlines and US Airways, has released its operational statistics for December, and the key figures are higher on a year-over-year basis. For the former unit, total revenue passenger miles came in at 11.9 billion, or 5% higher than the December 2012 figure. Available seat miles ticked up across that stretch of time by 1.1%, to 14.2 million. Load factor (i.e., the average "occupancy" of the carrier's flights) advanced by 3.1 percentage points, to 83.3%.
For US Airways, total revenue passenger miles amounted to 6.3 billion, or 7% higher on a year-over-year basis. The figure for available seat miles was 7.4 million, a 3.6% improvement over that of December 2012. Load factor came in at 84.7%, 2.7 percentage points higher than the year-ago number.
After months of maneuvering, the merger of the two carriers became official in mid-December. Ex-US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker became American Airlines Group's CEO, while American Airlines' former CEO Tomas Horton was named the new company's chairman.
