Delta Air Lines’ (DAL Quick QuoteDAL - Free Report) April traffic report was impressive with key metrics increasing significantly. Strong demand for air travel helped the carrier register a healthy year-over-year increase in consolidated traffic for the month. Another key metric, load factor (percentage of seats filled by passengers), also increased as traffic growth outweighed capacity expansion in the month.

Consolidated traffic, measured in revenue passenger miles (RPMs), increased 5.9% to 19.34 billion. Consolidated capacity (or available seat miles/ASMs) also climbed 5% to 22.52 billion on a year-over-year basis. Consolidated load factor increased 70 basis points to 85.8%.

Additionally, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company recorded an on-time performance (mainline) of 86.2% and a completion factor (mainline) of 99.8%. Notably, Delta’s passenger count rose 6.6% to almost 17 billion in the month. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

On a year-to-date basis, Delta’s load factor was flat at 83.5%. This was because traffic growth matched the 5% capacity expansion witnessed in the period. Apart from the traffic report, the Atlanta, GA-based carrier hit headlines, when it reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for first-quarter 2019.

Other key airline players namely Southwest Airlines (LUV Quick QuoteLUV - Free Report) , SkyWest (SKYW Quick QuoteSKYW - Free Report) and Alaska Air Group (ALK Quick QuoteALK - Free Report) also reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for first-quarter 2019.

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