WNSouthwest Airlines
…2025 Departures
…Load Factor
WNSouthwest Airlines historically is loved by many of its customers. Bags fly free and open seating were amongst the many things that passengers fell in love with the airline for, but all that has changed. Southwest is still a viable contender for low cost travel in the United States. By fleet size, they challenge Delta and United in terms of scale. The one thing that has hurt Southwest the most is their resistance to change, which squandered revenue and finds them behind the times on innovation. No premium classes. Southwest is now fixing all of that to the dismay of its loyalist customers.
Southwest is still a great choice for low cost flying here in the United States. They fly just about everywhere, including Hawaii, where they are the biggest competitor to Alaska/Hawaiian for inter-island flights. If you want to fly in a bit more comfort without dealing with the open-seating scramble, you may look to an airline like JetBlue or Alaska, but Southwest is actively working on becoming a more premium product.
Southwest flies to more than 100 airports across all 48 contiguous states plus Hawaii, and to select near-international markets in Mexico and the Caribbean. Unlike network carriers, Southwest uses a point-to-point model rather than hub-and-spoke, which means it connects smaller markets directly to each other without forcing connections through a central hub.
7 hubs
The airports where Southwest Airlines concentrates the most flights and connections, typically where it bases aircraft and crew.
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Per-aircraft performance, 2025
How efficiently Southwest Airlines uses each aircraft type it flies: load factor, seats per flight, and passengers per departure, broken down by airplane model.
Highest-volume city pairs by seat volume
The busiest routes Southwest Airlines flies by total seats, split into domestic and international. Ranked by volume, not necessarily by profitability.
Southwest is one of the most profitable airlines on the market. They have high aircraft utilization, a significant cost savings tool, as people and planes keep moving. There are no traditional hubs, but Southwest dominates several airports that happen to be secondary facilities in major cities: Dallas Love Field rather than DFW, Chicago Midway rather than O'Hare, Houston Hobby rather than IAH.
The load factor is notably the lowest of any carrier in this set, which actually makes sense when you understand the model. Southwest deliberately operates more frequencies than competitors on each route, prioritizing schedule convenience. Filling a plane at a lower load across twice as many flights generates strong total revenue even at lower per-flight utilization.
Understanding route metrics for Southwest Airlines
Load factor is the percentage of available seats filled with paying passengers. A route running at 85% or above is considered healthy and signals strong demand relative to capacity. When Southwest Airlines routes dip below 75%, it often means the airline is over-scheduling relative to demand, which can lead to fare cuts, frequency reductions, or eventual suspension. Routes where the load factor has declined more than 5 points versus the historical average are flagged in our Stability scoring, since sustained low fill rates are one of the strongest early indicators of a route being pulled.
Route Stability reflects how consistently a route has been operated over time and how healthy it looks today. Lower scores, flagging a route as Stability Watch or At Risk, are driven by a combination of factors: declining year-over-year passenger numbers, load factors below 75% (meaning seats are going empty), frequency cuts in 2024–2025 relative to 2023, and a history of suspension during COVID with a slow recovery. A route that Southwest Airlines skipped during 2020–2021 and never fully restored will carry a resilience penalty that drags the overall stability score down.
Route Dominance looks at Southwest Airlines's share of that route specifically. It is driven purely by Southwest Airlines's seat share on each route: Sole Operator means Southwest Airlines is the only nonstop carrier; Monopoly means it holds over 70% of seats; Dominant means 40–70%; below that falls into Competitive or Minor territory. High dominance on a busy route signals strong pricing power and low substitution risk for travelers.
Airport Commitment scores how deeply invested Southwest Airlines is at each airport it serves, specifically whether it's growing, holding steady, or pulling back. A Dominant or Committed label means the airline has meaningful seat share, stable or growing capacity, and strong route completion rates at that airport. A Marginal or Retreating label means thin seat share, capacity cuts since 2022, or a pattern of cancellations. Hub airports like Southwest Airlines's primary bases will always score highest; airports where it operates only one or two seasonal routes will score lowest.
