JetBlue's stock gains after December traffic rises more than capacity

JetBlue Airways Corp.'s stock rose 0.8% in premarket trade Thursday, after the air carrier reported an increase in a key traffic metric during December. Traffic for the month rose 4.5% from a year ago to 3.97 billion revenue passenger miles, while capacity grew 3.1% to 4.72 billion available seat miles. That translated to a 1.1 percentage point increase in load factor to 84.1%. Revenue per available seat mile slipped 1.5% from a year ago. The stock has gained 9.1% over the past 12 months through Wednesday, while the NYSE Arca Airline Index has soared 45% and the S&P 500 has rallied 17%.

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