Things looking up for Continental

Houston based Continental Airlines saw a spike of 5.2 percent in March in traffic. The carrier said growth on international routes helped to deal with weak domestic results.

In another sign that the airline industry slump that began 18-24 months ago is slowly rebounding,  Continental saw 7.87 billion million miles flown by paid customers in March, up from 7.48 billion one year ago.

While capacity only grew 0.5 percent year to year, international travel shot up 10.9 percent. Of course Continental flew fewer flights, which means this increased traffic meant many passengers saw fuller planes when boarding with an increase from 79.4 to 83.1 percent.

Continental Airlines, which is the United State's fourth largest carrier, was the first to report their March traffic.

Source: Market Watch