WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) on Thursday reported operational results for the month of July, reporting year-over-year increases in traffic, capacity, and load factor from last year.
The company estimates passenger revenue per available seat mile or PRASM for July to have increased about 4 percent compared to the year-ago period.
Dallas, Texas-based Southwest said traffic, measured in revenue passenger miles or RPMs, grew 6.6 percent in July to 10.63 billion from 9.98 billion in the same month last year. Capacity, measured in available seat miles or ASMs, increased 2.6 percent to 12.26 billion from last year's 11.95 billion.
Load factor for the month increased 3.2 percentage points to 86.7 percent from the year-ago period's 83.5 percent.
Revenue passengers carried in the month totaled 10.31 million, up 5.7 percent from 9.76 million in the prior-year period.
The number of passengers enplaned during the month rose 4.9 percent from last year to 12.81 million. However, the number of trips flown declined 3.7 percent from a year ago to 113,099.
For the year-to-date period, traffic grew 2.8 percent to 63.38 billion RPMs from 61.66 billion RPMs in the same period last year. Meanwhile, capacity for the seven-month period edged down 0.2 percent to 76.83 billion ASMs from last year 76.98 billion ASMs.
Load factor for the quarter rose 2.4 percentage points to 82.5 percent from the year-ago quarter's 80.1 percent.
LUV is trading at $28.23, up $0.11 or 0.38 percent on a volume of 252,633 shares.
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