Washington, March 23 (IANS) US airline traffic regained its momentum in December after a slight year-on-year decrease in the previous month, according to the preliminary data released by US Transportation Department Thursday.

US airlines carried 58.9 million domestic and international passengers in December 2011, 0.5 percent more than the same period of 2010, said the department. There were 0.6 percent more domestic passengers and 0.3 percent more international passengers in December than a year ago, Xinhua reported.

Throughout the year, US airlines carried 730.0 million passengers, up 1.3 percent from 2010. It was also the best yearly performance since 2008. Domestically, they carried 637.5 million passengers, up 1.3 percent from 2010. Internationally, they carried 92.5 million passengers, up 1.7 percent from 2010.

Southwest Airlines carried more domestic passengers than any other US airlines in December, reaching 9.06 million. American Airlines took the first place in terms of international passengers with as many as 1.79 million, according to the data.

Suffering from economic crisis, the US airline industry experienced sharp decline in flight demand. However, the US airline traffic has been gradually looking up from the early 2010.

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