CALGARY — WestJet is reporting November 2013 traffic results with a load factor of 79.7%, down from a record 82.6% in November 2012.

Revenue passenger miles (RPMs), or traffic, increased 5.7% year over year, and capacity, measured in available seat miles (ASMs), grew 9.4% over the same period.

The airline flew 1.4 million guests in November, a year-over-year increase of 3.8% or approximately 53,000 additional guests.

“We are very pleased with the achievement of our second-highest November load factor, two percentage points better than our third highest, as our strong traffic growth continued in the month. As well, our on-time performance saw another significant year-over-year improvement, increasing 11.9 points to 77.4% in November,” said WestJet President and CEO Gregg Saretsky.

“During the month we announced Dublin, Ireland as our first transatlantic destination, and launched WestJet Encore’s service to its fourth new community of Terrace, BC.”

WestJet expects year-over-year system-wide capacity growth of approximately 7.0% in December and as a result, approximately 8.5% for the full-year 2013 and approximately 8.0% for the fourth quarter of 2013. WestJet continues to expect system-wide capacity growth between 4.0 and 6.0% for the full-year 2014, with WestJet Encore representing approximately half of this growth.