February 4, 2009 6:13 PM ET
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - American Eagle, the sister carrier to American Airlines, said Wednesday that January traffic tumbled 17.9 percent and planes flew only three-fifths full on average.

The company said paying passengers on Eagle and Executive Airlines traveled 521.9 million miles last month, down from 635.4 million miles in January 2008.

That was faster than the regional carrier could cut flights. Capacity fell 12.4 percent to 852.6 million available seat miles. Occupancy dropped to 61.2 percent on average, down from 65.3 percent a year earlier.

Shares of parent AMR Corp. fell 25 cents, or 4.5 percent, to close at $5.31. They have traded between $4 and $16.49 over the past 52 weeks.

AMR 5.00 -0.31 -5.84%

American Eagle traffic tumbled in January: Associated Press Business News: AMR - MSN Money