AirCal Passenger Miles Up; Occupancy Rate Is Down

AirCal said its revenue passenger miles during October increased 25% to 198.1 million from 158.6 million a year earlier. A revenue passenger mile is the equivalent of one paying passenger flying one mile.

The load factor, or the percentage of available seats actually occupied, fell to 49.3% during October from 52.6% a year before, the Newport Beach-based regional airline said.

For the first 10 months of 1986, revenue passenger miles increased nearly 19% to 1.8 billion from 1.5 billion for the like period of 1985. The load factor fell to 53.7% during 1986 from 56.8% last year.

Both revenue passenger mile and the number of empty seats increased because AirCal has added new planes to its fleet--giving it more seats to fill--while adding several new routes to its schedule, including flights from Orange County to Chicago and the Pacific Northwest.