Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) shares fell nearly 5% in premarket Thursday after the company reported second-quarter results.
The company’s EPS of $1.09 was in line with the analyst estimate while revenue rose 4.6% year-over-year to $7.04 billion, ahead of the consensus for revenue of $6.98B.
Load factor was weaker than expected – 83.4% vs consensus of 85.2% – and could explain post-earnings weakness in shares.
"The resilient demand environment, especially for close-in leisure travel, drove second quarter 2023 operating revenue per available seat mile to the high end of our expectations," CEO Bob Jordan said.
"Based on current revenue and cost trends, we expect record operating revenue and a profitable outlook again for third quarter 2023 and continue to expect year-over-year margin expansion for full year 2023," he added.