Southwest Airlines February Traffic, Load Factor Rise; Capacity Declines

(RTTNews) - Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) on Monday reported operational results for the month of February, reporting year-over-year increases in traffic and load factor, while capacity declined.

The company estimates passenger revenue per available seat mile or PRASM for the month to have increased about 5 percent compared to the year-ago period. This includes one point of estimated PRASM benefit from February's storms.

Dallas, Texas-based Southwest said traffic for February, measured in revenue passenger miles or RPMs, grew 1.2 percent to 7.15 billion from 7.06 billion in the same month last year. However, capacity, measured in available seat miles or ASMs, declined 1.7 percent to 9.15 billion from 9.31 billion in the prior year.

Load factor, or the percentage of seats filled, rose 2.3 percentage points to 78.1 percent from 75.8 percent in the prior-year period.

Revenue passengers carried in the month totaled 7.54 million, down 1.1 percent from 7.63 million in the year-ago month.

The number of passengers enplaned during the month edged down 0.6 percent to 9.19 million from 9.25 million in the same period last year. The number of trips flown declined 6.1 percent to 90,946 from 96,804 a year ago.

For the first two months of 2014, Southwest's traffic rose 1.7 percent to 14.56 billion RPMs from 14.31 billion RPMs in the year-ago period. However, capacity decreased 2.2 percent to 18.87 billion ASMs from 18.67 billion ASMs in the year-ago period. Meanwhile, load factor rose to 77.2 percent from 74.2 percent in the same period last year.

LUV closed Friday's trading at $23.10, down $0.02 or 0.09 percent on a volume of 7.07 million shares.