Buoyed by reports of fewer empty seats and predictions from some carriers that revenues are improving, shares of American and Northwest inched toward their Sept. 10 closing prices on Monday, while Delta Air Lines surpassed the mark.
The Dow Jones transportation average, which tracks the broader sector, soared more than 5 percent.
Southwest Airlines, the only major carrier to report a fourth quarter profit in 2001, transcended its pre-Sept. 11 levels back in November. The company said Monday, though, that it couldn't be sure of a first quarter profit in 2002, blaming two consecutive months of declining passenger traffic.
Major carriers are still in a funk based on year-to-year comparisons, but the majority have made month-to-month progress in luring back travelers and Wall Street is latching onto any positive news it can find in this troubled sector.
Salomon Smith Barney analyst Brian Harris called the industry's performance in February ``encouraging,'' while Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Linenberg said he was ``pleased by the improvement.''
Despite Wall Street's optimism about the gradual industry turnaround, most carriers continue to lose money.
One carrier that has predicted a profit by March is Houston-based Continental Airlines, whose passenger traffic declined by 6.7 percent in February to 4.2 billion revenue passenger miles, a measure of the number of paying customers that travel one mile. By comparison the company had only 4 billion revenue passenger miles in October, the first full month of travel after the attacks.
Continental's capacity, or number of available seats, was down 11.3 percent from the previous year. That helped improve the percentage of seats filled, or load factor, by roughly 4 percentage points to 72 percent. October's load factor was 66 percent.
Continental, the nation's fifth-biggest airline, said revenue generated per seat in February was between 10 and 12 percent below year ago levels. That's better than January, though, when per-seat revenues were down 14 percent from the year before.
``The reduction in systemwide capacity has resulted in superior operating performance for many carriers,'' said Linenberg, adding that Continental's on-time performance has also been on the rise lately.
The positive reception of Continental's February data, pushed the stock $2.10, or 6 percent, higher on Monday to $34.80 on the New York Stock Exchange. While Continental's shares remain lower than their Sept. 10 close of $39.64, the carrier's positive news sent shares of other airlines substantially higher.
Shares of American climbed $1.80 to $29.05 on the NYSE, not far from its Sept. 10 closing price of $29.70. The stock price of Atlanta-based Delta, the third-largest airline, rose $2.42 to $38.59, above its Sept. 10 closing price of $37.25. And Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest ended the day at $19.08 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, about half a dollar below its closing price the day before the terror attacks.
American Airlines' said its February passenger traffic declined by 13.7 percent to 8.3 billion revenue passenger miles. And with the number of available seats down 17.2 percent compared with last year, American's load factor improved by about 3 percentage points to 68 percent.
Southwest's February passenger traffic was down 4.4 percent from a year earlier to 3.2 billion revenue passenger miles. But with capacity up by 5 percent, the Dallas-based carrier's load factor suffered, declining by 6 percentage points to 61 percent.
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