Significant capacity reductions at Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, the disappearance of Independence Air and recent fuel-driven fare hikes gave US carriers their third consecutive month of double-digit year-over-year domestic yield growth in April.

According to the Air Transport Assn., US domestic yield for the seven largest US airlines excluding Southwest rose 12% in April to 13.23 cents per RPM. ATA separately reported that domestic traffic for the industry grew 2.6% against a 3% reduction in ASMs, pushing load factor up 4.5 points and propelling domestic mainline RASM ahead 17.6% to 10.94 cents.

Atlantic yield rose 3.5% to 10.82 cents on a 6.4% increase in RPMs. A 6.6% hike in ASMs, however, held the RASM growth to 3.3% to 10.18 cents. Latin America yield climbed 6.6% to 13.08 cents on a 12% lift in traffic. With capacity up just 1.8%, load factor jumped 7.1 points and RASM leaped 17.9% to 10.18 cents. Slowest yield growth was on the Pacific, up 0.7% to 10.48 cents on a 6% rise in traffic. With capacity up 5.2%, load factor rose 0.6 points and RASM climbed 1.5% to 8.2 cents.