HOUSTON, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Southwest Airlines, the biggest U.S. discount airline, said Thursday its second-quarter profit rose to 112 million U.S. dollars, from 91 million in the same period last year.
Total operating revenue rose 21.1 percent 3.17 billion, from 2.62 billion in the year-earlier period. Eleven analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated revenues of 3.15 billion for the quarter.
Passenger revenues increased 20.4 percent from last year to 3.02 billion. Freight revenues was up nearly 14 percent, the Dallas-based carrier said.
Higher business travel demand and strong traffic led to the better-than-expected performance.
Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the company is "extremely pleased" with its second-quarter results.
"Although business demand has not fully recovered, it has strengthened, and consumer travel demand is robust," Kelly said in a statement.
He said that given the current economic outlook and trends, the company will "continue to approach route expansion through optimizing our flight schedule rather than fleet growth."
"We remain committed to reaching our financial targets before we return to any significant level of fleet growth," he said.
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