SWA boards more passengers than anyone now!

[WNjetdoc]

BTS Releases May Airline Traffic Data

Southwest Airlines carried 6.5 million domestic passengers in May, more than any other airline. A year earlier, Southwest ranked third behind Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. In April, Southwest ranked second behind Delta.

Southwest's top ranking in domestic passenger traffic culminates a long-trend of growth by low-fare carriers and lesser dominance by network carriers. In May, 1990, for example, seven network carriers — American, Delta, US Air, United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and TWA — carried more domestic passengers than the 1.9 million carried by Southwest.

Table 1
Top 10 Airlines, ranked by May 2003 Domestic Enplanements
Excel | CSV

Rank Airline Name Airline Code May-02 Apr-03 May-03 May-02 Rank
1 Southwest Airlines, Co. WN 6,609,204 6,137,024 6,541,247 3
2 Delta Air Lines, Inc. DL 7,066,533 6,160,049 6,337,258 1
3 American Airlines, Inc. AA 6,717,971 5,907,580 6,218,797 2
4 United Airlines, Inc. UA 4,851,527 4,537,823 4,699,311 4
5 Northwest Airlines, Inc. NW 3,697,230 3,500,259 3,528,516 6
6 US Airways, Inc. US 4,030,764 3,227,126 3,289,483 5
7 Continental Airlines, Inc. CO 2,772,405 2,521,969 2,628,289 7
8 America West Airlines, Inc. HP 1,645,706 1,593,759 1,665,788 8
9 Alaska Airlines, Inc. AS 1,016,941 991,258 1,083,729 9
10 American Eagle Airlines, Inc. MQ 967,918 1,027,404 1,073,511 10

 

[UALDC767]

Yippee!

a news flash from May 2003!!!!

DC

 

[AstroLounge]

Whoopee-wah-wah-wah! I still wouldn't fly them! Just goes to show you what a cattle prod and tacky painted planes will do in the old USA. FLY United!

 

[luvthe9]

SWA=GREYHOUND

 

[Borescope]

And look whats happened to Greyhound :down:

 

[BoeingBoy]

Let me help you out there, WNjetdoc. Here's the latest from BTS - October 2005:

1 Southwest 7,571,730
2 American 6,213,660
3 Delta 5,810,108
4 United 4,612,307
5 Northwest 3,628,273
6 US Airways 2,825,077
7 Continental 2,769,157
8 America West 1,708,275
9 American Eagle 1,494,990
10 SkyWest 1,437,788

Not to take anything away from WN - they developed a successful business model, stuck to it, and any other airline in the world would love to have as many consecutive years of profits as they have had.

But, these rankings are based on U.S. Domestic passengers only. For WN that's all passengers, but not for every airline. Of course, there's the international passengers. But also notice the express affiliates that are listed separately in the above ranking. Add American and Eagle and the total is more domestic passengers than WN.

Thus, the rankings for total passengers courtesy of ATW magazine:

1 - American 66,852,000
9 - American Eagle 11,534,000
Total = 78,386,000

2 - Delta 60,710,000
12- Comair 13 8,822,000
Total = 79,532,000

3 - Southwest 59,216,000

4 - United 45,073,000

5 - Northwest 39,278,000

6 - US Airways 29,920,000

7 - Continental 28,955,000
11- ExpressJet 10,557,000
Total 39,512,000

8 - America West 14,991,000

10- Alaska 11,364,000

12- JetBlue 12 9,789,000

14- ATA Airlines 4,053,000

Jim

 

[SharoninSAT]

SWA=GREYHOUND

SWA=GREYHOUND=TOP DOG