In a regulatory filing released Wednesday, Southwest Airlines said it expects its October capacity to decrease up to 45%. Like many carriers, it is struggling with the erratic recovery of the US domestic market due to spikes in coronavirus cases.
Southwest Airlines said on Wednesday that the inconsistent air travel recovery pattern over the past few months is causing it to cut its October schedule. The Dallas-based low-cost carrier is already blocking seats through the end of October, and now it seems it will further reduce its available seat miles.
Flexible schedule until April 2021
While rebounding passenger figures in May and June were cause for optimism, spikes in coronavirus cases across the US in July saw hopes for a quick recovery dashed. Southwest saw a slight improvement in leisure demand this month. However, bookings remain inconsistent. As such, it expects its October capacity to decrease between 40% to 45%. It had previously estimated it would be down by 30%, so this is a substantial shift.
A spokesperson for Southwest told Simple Flying that the airline is reaching out to anyone affected by a schedule change. The carrier said it is offering both apologies for any inconvenience, and gratitude for their flexibility, as journeys “may now have a different path or duration.”
The airline has filed schedules through April 11th, 2021, but says it will keep monitoring demand and adjusting accordingly on a monthly basis.
Meanwhile, plans are still a go-ahead for the new route to Steamboat Springs in Colorado from Denver and Dallas come December, which is the first new destination to be added to the network since COVID began.
Meanwhile, Southwest feels confident in its liquidity as it announced yesterday it would not be participating in the loan portion of the US Treasury Department’s CARES package. And even though this will be the first year in its nearly 50-year history that the carrier will not make a profit, it is the only major US carrier to have said it will not be furloughing any staff when payroll support runs out on October 1st.
Erratic recovery prompted by virus spikes
While the total number of coronavirus cases continues to rise across the United States (around 5,7 million at the time of writing), the daily new case count nationwide is somewhat diminishing. From a high of 78,584 on July 24th to 44,954 on August 19th.
This trend may have contributed to the fact that on Sunday, the TSA processed 863,000 passengers at airport security nationwide. This is the highest number since the outbreak of the pandemic in mid-March, but only about one-third of last year’s numbers.
Meanwhile, there is a significant disparity in numbers between different states. Early hotspots such as New York have consistently reported around 800 new cases per day over the past couple of months. However, for example, Florida and California saw numbers rise significantly in July.
While domestic air travel is generally expected to recover quicker than international, the varying numbers across states make for an uneven and unpredictable road ahead for the US domestic market.
No matter what schedules will end up looking like in the months to come, we are happy some real Southwest fans managed to catch a ride with their favorite airline.
Meet Emmitt, a Southwest super-fan! pic.twitter.com/R6bryzUlxC
— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) August 18, 2020
Let us all be this excited when we are back in the air, even though it may be on “new normal” terms.