New reports from Air France came out yesterday (October 7) say the airline had a 3.7 percent dip in traffic for the month of September. This drop is being compared to the traffic figures from the same time last year.

The carrier said that its capacity was down 4.9 percent as well when compared to last year. This gives the airline a 1 percent boost in its load factor bringing it up to 81.9 percent. The group did go on to note that they carried some 6.2 million passengers in September. However, this is still a drop of 5.3 percent when compared to September of 2008.

Air France pointed out that, on its North America transatlantic routes, they saw a drop of 3.8 percent in traffic. This was well below its 6.4 percent capacity cuts, which did lead to a 0.8 rise in its load factor, which finished out the month at 88.3 percent.

The carrier said that, on its European network, both traffic and capacity were down. They noted a 5.6 percent drop in load factor to 72.5 percent. Even the airline’s Asian routes saw a decrease of 3.65 percent in traffic with a 4.4 percent cut in capacity. However, on these routes the load factor did rise slightly by 0.8 percent to 72.5 percent overall.

Air France came out and said in a statement that the market conditions are similar to those that were seen before the summer. Thus, revenues remain under pressure for the most part. Experts go on to point out that the recession is easing, but the damage has been done to many travel markets and it will take some time for them to start to recover.