Southwest sales slow after Albuquerque woman died

Southwest Airline’s first passenger fatality is still costing the company money and expected to drag down sales well into the summer travel season.

On Monday, Southwest said it expects a 3 percent decrease in revenue per available seat mile in the second quarter. That slump is at the lower end of predictions the company made in April, when president Thomas Nealon said lost revenue per available seat mile — a key metric in the industry — would land somewhere between 1 percent and 3 percent down, in part because of the April accident.

The airline said the decrease is mainly driven by lower bookings after it scaled back marketing because of the fatal accident on April 17, in which one passenger died and seven others were injured.

Jennifer Riordan, a bank executive from Albuquerque, a wife and mother to two children, was killed after shrapnel from the flight’s blown out engine broke a plane window and struck her. Southwest Flight 1380 made an emergency landing, resulting in the first passenger fatality on a U.S. carrier since 2009 — and Southwest’s first passenger fatality in its 51-year history.

Phillip Phan, a professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, said the 3 percent decline could be especially damaging by going “straight down through [Southwest’s] operating margins.”

Timothy Coombs, a crisis communication expert at Texas A&M University, said it’s difficult to predict how long flyers will continue to worry about Southwest’s April accident.

Moving into summer, Coombs said that Southwest will have to walk a narrow line between needlessly reminding people of its darkest day and reassuring them that it’s safe to fly.