Porter’s January numbers are out, and contrary to the media coverage, they are not pretty.

Its business peaked last August, at 63.7 million revenue passenger miles (RPM – the miles flown by paying passengers), and has been in decline ever since, down to 53.1 in November, with a slight bump in December to 57.8 (all those 20% and 30% discounts?), and then a precipitous drop in January to 44.1.

By contrast, in 2009,  it was rapidly tapping into the available market, growing from the summer into the fall at an impressive rate: from 29.9 RPM in July to 39.9 by October, and 40.5 by December.

The December- January drop seems normal for Porter– last year , RPM dropped to 32.2 in January. This year, the drop was slightly higher, in percentage terms, down by 23.8% this year, compared to 20.5% last year.

Load factors – the percentage of seats filled – fluctuate as Porter adjusts the number of flights to meet demand. From a high of 63.9% last August, to a low of 51.7% in January – just under half of all available seats were empty. And that’s with continuing intensive marketing, and very frequent 20-30% discounts.

That adjustment in capacity has seen the number of available seat miles (ASM, in millions) peak last august at 99.7, dropping to 92.8 in December, and further, to 85.2 in January. More planes sitting on the tarmac for longer periods of time.

The other available facts about Porter are the U.S. loads, reported six months in arrears. They reflect the growth overall we saw to August, but we can only guess what happened on these routes after June.

They do show a slow but steady growth in both RPM and ASM for all three destinations.

Chicago improved from an abysmal load factor in January 2010 of 22% to 43% in June, with an increase in ASM from 8190 each way to about 10, 600 by June 2010.

Newark’s’ load factors continue to hover in the high forties to low fifties. Boston from the high twenties to the high thirties.

The decline in business we saw overall from July on will likely be reflected in the US routes too.

One must wonder why Porter continues to schedule so many flights when it flies at less than half full for most of the time. Is it “If you fly, they will come?” It is not apparent that that wish is coming true.

Brian Iler