Southwest Airlines Reports March Traffic

Southwest Airlines reported its March and first quarter traffic figures on Friday, with passenger numbers up by just over 3 percent.

Southwest carried 11.29 million revenue passengers in March, an increase of 3.2 percent on the previous year. For the quarter to end March the airline served 29.5 million revenue passengers, a 3.3 percent lift.

Traffic in revenue passenger miles (RPM) was up 3.9 percent for the month, but available seat miles (ASM) capacity rose 4.5 percent, resulting in a 0.5 percentage point fall in load factor to 84.1 percent.

For the quarter, RPM traffic increased 3.3 percent on an ASM capacity rise of 4.1 percent. Load factor dropped 0.6 percentage points to 79.9 percent.

Southwest estimates first quarter 2017 operating revenue per ASM will decline by between two and three percent compared with 1Q16. It said bookings and unit revenue trends remain strong for the second quarter.