Delta Air Lines Inc. said on Wednesday that its July traffic rose slightly from a year earlier, while occupancy on its planes fell slightly.

Delta, the nation's second-largest airline, said traffic rose a tenth of one percent to 19.64 billion revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger flown one mile. Domestic traffic fell 0.9 percent, with international traffic up 1.5 percent.

But Delta increased the number of seats by 1 percent, with capacity rising to 22.43 billion available seat miles.

That meant it had more seats without more passengers to fill them. Occupancy, called load factor, fell 0.7 percentage points to 87.6 percent.

For the first seven months of the year, Delta traffic rose 0.9 percent to 112.94 billion revenue passenger miles. Capacity rose 3.4 percent to 138.79 billion available seat miles. Load factor is down 2 percentage points to 81.4 percent.

Shares of Atlanta-based Delta rose 12 cents on Wednesday to close at US$7.55.