Airline holding company Pinnacle Airlines Corp (NASDAQ:PNCL) reported on Friday an improvement in October load factor for its two airlines, Pinnacle Airlines Inc and Colgan Air Inc.

Pinnacle Airlines recorded a load factor of 79.6% for October 2009, up 1.3 percentage points from October 2008. Pinnacle's passenger traffic decreased by 9.0% while its capacity was reduced by 10.5%.

The airline carried a total of 934,740 passengers during the month, an increase of 1.4%.

Colgan Air achieved an October load factor of 62.1%, showing an improvement of 4.3 percentage points compared with the same month last year. Traffic was down 4.0% and capacity was reduced by 10.6%.

Passenger numbers for Colgan Air in October 2009 totalled 233,783, a decline of 8.4% year-on-year.