Easter helps Continental’s April yield, May could be just as depressed

Much has been made of Continental Airlines' seeming stabilisation of its unit passenger revenues last month - its shares rocketed up 18% on the report, for one. Continental said its revenue per available seat mile (RASK) was down 12.5% to 13.5% year-on-year in April, following an unprecedented 19.6% plunge in March. But the timing of Easter probably exaggerated the figure by around 2-3 ppts (with a similar downward impact on the March figure). This suggests yields are still deeply depressed and are significantly outstripping the reduction in capacity and unit costs.