Iberia May passenger traffic falls 11.4 pct

MADRID, June 9 (Reuters) - Iberia's IBLA.MC May passenger traffic fell 11.4 percent year on year, the Spanish airline said on Tuesday with its long-distance business to Latin America suffering most amid a global downturn and the swine flu outbreak.

Iberia -- which is in talks to merge with British Airways BAY.L -- said its load factor, which measures how full its planes were, slipped to 78.0 percent compared to 79.6 percent a year earlier.

Iberia's capacity was 9.6 percent than in May 2008, the data released to the stock market regulator showed. (Reporting by Ben Harding)