Wichita ? Discount carrier AirTran Airways said it considered Wichita a “bright spot,” despite a slow start that led to losses of more than $730,000 in its first month at Mid-Continent Airport.

AirTran said it was encouraged by a significant increase in traffic in June, and city officials say the airline has already saved passengers millions of dollars.

The airline billed the city $732,358 for first-month losses, citing high startup costs, light passenger loads and a large number of discount tickets.

Some independent experts say AirTran’s start was slower than they expected but increasing sales in coming months is more important than the initial loss.

The Orlando, Fla.-based airline began daily nonstop service from Wichita to Chicago and Atlanta, its hub, on May 8.

The city has pledged to cover up to $3 million of AirTran’s losses in the first year and $1.5 million in the second year, as part of the agreement that brought the airline to Wichita.

The airline has not yet submitted its June bill.

The city said the airline had 11,275 passengers in May and 17,257 in June. That is a 17 percent improvement in passengers per day, from 490 in May to 575 people per day in June on 10 flights into and out of Wichita. Still, in June, the planes were only 50 percent full.

The company said Monday that its airplanes companywide were 72.3 percent full.

“We characterize Wichita as a bright spot,” AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson said. “We’ve opened service in 38 cities, so we should know what that feels like.”

Part of the reason AirTran sustained such a large loss is that it dropped ticket prices to woo passengers and win market share, said Ray Trail, Wichita’s director of finance.

“My sense is they’ve been pretty aggressive about pricing to build market share,” Trail said.

In response, other airlines have dropped their fares, cutting into AirTran’s potential traffic.

Airline consultant Mike Boyd of the Evergreen, Colo.-based Boyd Group said he was surprised at the size of the deficit and the low ridership.

“I would have thought there was enough pent-up demand, they would be overloaded from day one,” Boyd said.