Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) has announced that its income for the third trimester has seen a considerable increase, which it attributes to reducing its expenditure, which is also due to reduced fuel expenses. The airline which is the largest transporter of local travelers in the US is moving away from its pedigree of the being the leader in cheap airfares and is looking to expand its services beyond the 48 continuous US states.
The airlines said that its passenger earning per available seat mile, an important performance milestone for the airline industry, grew by 5.1% in this trimester. In the report just released, it intimated that it had a total income $259 million, or 37 cents a share, which was a tad higher than the $16 million, or two cents a share, it earned in the same period last year. Leaving out special goods its earnings per share grew to 34 cents a share from 13 cents. Its income from operations grew by 5.5% to $4.55 billion.
The airlines fuel and oil expenses were lower by 5.1% at $1.45 billion, as fuel prices per-gallon dropped 3.2% to $3.06. Its full operating costs went down by 2.4% to $4.16 billion. Earlier in the month the airline had said that total traffic had come down by 0.6% in the trimester, though total capacity had grown by 1%. The percentage of seats that were available and taken was 80.8%, which had fallen from 82.1% a year ago.
In other news the company has said that it could remove its policy of letting the passengers check in their two bags without paying. The company could start charging the passengers for the same. The airline CEO Gary Kelly said the airline could change the rule as a number of passengers were ready to pay for their bags.
