Southwest Airlines announces February traffic stats
Southwest Airlines has reported its traffic figures for February 2010, featuring a load factor increase of almost 5 percentage points.
The airline flew 4,986,254,000 revenue passenger miles (RPMs) in February 2010, a 2.3% decrease from the 5,104,418,000 RPMs flown in February 2009. Available seat miles (ASMs) decreased 8.7% to 6,751,455,000 from the February 2009 level of 7,391,395,000.
The load factor for the month was up by 4.8 pp at 73.9%, compared with 69.1% for the same period last year. Weather-related flight cancellations during the month reduced the carrier’s passenger revenues by an estimated $15 million. For February 2010, Southwest estimates that the passenger revenue per ASM increased in the 16%-17% range compared with February 2009.