Southwest sales drop after accident

First-quarter profit up, but company braces for revenue fall

DALLAS — Southwest Airlines reports bookings are down since the fatal accident on one of its planes last week.

The company said Thursday that it expects revenue per mile, which tracks average prices, will drop between 1 percent and 3 percent in the Aprilthrough-june quarter. It said that about 2 percentage points of the decline are because of slower sales since the April 17 accident, which killed a passenger.

Southwest, the busiest commercial air carrier operating at Mccarran International Airport, disclosed the weaker bookings as it reported a 22 percent increase in first-quarter profit, to $463 million. The results were in line with Wall Street expectations.

The financial ups and downs were overshadowed by the emergency landing of one of Southwest’s planes in Philadelphia last week after an engine blew apart, knocked out a window, and killed a

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passenger. It was the first accident-related death of a passenger in the airline’s 47-year history.

“It remains a somber time” at the airline, CEO Gary Kelly said in a statement. He repeated condolences to the family of the woman who died, pledged to cooperate with accident investigators and said Southwest “will never compromise” on safety.

The Dallas-based airline also announced that it plans to fly to four cities in Hawaii, not just Honolulu.

That raises the stakes in a competition with Hawaiian Airlines and other carriers that fly to the islands from the West Coast. The Southwest flights are expected to start late this year or early in 2019.

Southwest has indicated it plans convenient connecting flights from Las Vegas through California to Hawaii and isn’t committing to nonstop flights from Mccarran to the islands.

Las Vegas, frequently referred to as Hawaii’s “eighth island,” sees significant traffic to and from Hawaii, not only because of established ties through Boyd Gaming’s downtown Las Vegas properties but because

the University of Hawaii plays in the same football conference as UNLV.

Southwest also said it will lease coveted takeoff and landing slots at Laguardia Airport in New York and Washington Reagan National Airport from Alaska Airlines, allowing it to expand at two airports that are full.

Southwest shares fell 53 cents, 1 percent, to $53.30 a share on trading about twice the average volume and rebounded by 2 cents, less than 1 percent, to $53.32 a share in after-hours trading.

Review-journal staff writer Richard N. Velotta contributed to this story.