Despite the meltdown in 2022 that led to an overall financial loss, Southwest Airlines has still reported record revenue during its first quarter of $5.7 billion.
This is a 22% increase, even with the airline losing $159 million from the meltdown that stretched well into 2023.
This means that while the costs from the fiasco have eaten into Southwest’s profits, the airline does expect to make a profit in the next quarter due to the high inflow of cash.
The airline attributed this to strong March bookings that overcame weak January and February revenue. This was a result of backlash from the technical and staffing issues late 2022 that caused the airline to cancel over 5,400 flights over 48 hours.
But this high demand also led to higher fares, as travelers paid 10% more to fly each mile on Southwest during the quarter, compared to a year ago.
Southwest recently had another technical error mid-April that led to them grounding all of their flights for a short period of time.
A “data connection issue resulting from a firewall failure” led to a brief flight stop that canceled only nine flights across the US, but led to a delay of 41% of its schedule.
Check out the video below to hear about Southwest’s earnings for the first quarter of 2023:
Featured image from Southwest Airlines
