A Mostly Domestic Southwest Airlines Is Seeing a Recovery Eluding Others for Now
Photo Credit: Southwest Airlines is using an electrostatic sprayer system to sanitize aircraft. Southwest Airlines
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If travelers want to stay closer to home during the recovery, as many expect, Southwest Airlines is poised to gain.
Until early May, Southwest Airlines executives described their revenue stream as a leaky bucket, with some new bookings coming in, but not enough to offset losses from itinerary cancelations.
"You just can't keep the water up," Andrew Watterson, the airline's chief commercial officer, said in an interview.
As many U.S. states, cities, and counties dropped stay-at-home orders earlier this month, Southwest began to see noticeable improvement, and on May 19, it reported new bookings outpaced cancelations for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the United States in March.
"It really marks the start of a recovery when you have it turned from net negative to net positive," Watterson said.
Since then, Southwest executives have been more bullish than their counterparts at the three other large U.S. airlines, believing the travel rebound is here. As the Big Three move to slash staff and cut flights, Southwest is (mostly) staying the course.
Of course, Southwest has s
