Mesa Air Group's interisland carrier go! filled 71.1 percent of its capacity last month — a year-over-year increase of 2.5 percentage points — due to flying fewer aircraft than it did in June 2008.

The 3-year-old airline said yesterday its load factor increased from 68.65 percent a year ago because it is now near normal capacity with four 50-seat CRJ-200s flying full lines and its fifth aircraft being used half the time for flights and the other half of the time as a spare.

A year ago, go! was operating with seven aircraft — one of the planes was a spare — after adding capacity in the aftermath of the shutdown of Aloha Airlines at the end of March.

Due to the reduction in aircraft, go!'s passenger traffic fell 21.9 percent to 67,150 last month compared with 86,021 in the year-earlier period.

“;We are very pleased to have achieved a higher year-over-year load factor in spite of this difficult economic environment,”; go! Vice President Paul Skellon said. “;We continue to carefully match capacity with demand while maintaining high-frequency interisland travel, and we are particularly encouraged by strong bookings over the holidays and the coming months.”;

Go!'s available seat miles, or one seat transported one mile, fell 25.1 percent to 13.4 million from 17.9 million due to the reduction in aircraft. Revenue passenger miles, or one paying passenger transported one mile, fell 22.4 percent to 9.6 million from 12.3 million.