Alaska Airlines says some advance bookings down

Alaska Airlines said Wednesday that advance bookings for April are up, possibly reflecting the later Easter holiday this year, but that bookings for travel in May and June are below 2008 levels.

The company also forecast higher unit costs excluding fuel for the first quarter and all of 2009.

Alaska also continues to hedge half of its fuel needs at prices higher than current prices.

The Seattle-based airline said April bookings as a percentage of available seats times miles flown, are running 1 percentage point higher than last year, when Easter fell in March.

But May bookings are down 1.5 percentage points and June bookings are off 5 points from a year ago, Alaska said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

At its sister carrier, Horizon Air, April bookings are flat as a percentage of available seat miles flown, while May bookings are down 2 points and June bookings are down 4 points.

Last week, Alaska Airlines reported that March traffic fell 8.1 percent compared with a year ago, but that it cut capacity by 9 percent.

As a result, Alaska's average occupancy or load factor in March rose to 81.6 percent from 80.8 percent a year earlier at a time when most U.S. carriers reported lower occupancy.

However, March traffic plunged 20.7 percent at Horizon.

In Wednesday's filing, Alaska said it expects to report that first-quarter capacity fell 9.3 percent and would decline 7 percent for all of 2009.

The airline said its unit costs, or cost per available seat mile excluding fuel and restructuring expenses, rose 11 percent in the first quarter and would rise 8 percent for the full year.

Alaska and Horizon combined have agreements in place to buy half of their fuel supply this year at an average price equal to $76 per gallon of crude oil. The benchmark price for crude was around $51 Wednesday.

Alaska locked in the prices when oil was much more costly.

Shares of parent Alaska Air Group Inc. rose 40 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $19.51 in afternoon trading.