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On Tuesday, Southwest Airlines, who carries more US passengers than other airlines, has reported another six percent fall in traffic for the month of February. The airline said that they had 5.1 billion revenue passenger miles, the measure of one passenger per mile flown, for last month in comparison to 5.43 billion for the year before.



During last month, the number of boarded passengers for Southwest Airlines declined to 7.07 million, a decrease of nine percent. Despite this drop, a reduction in capacity aided the load factor, the percentage of filled seats on flights, of the carrier, which increased from 68.6 percent to 69.1 percent. Available seat miles decreased from 7.91 billion to 7.39 billion, a difference of 6.5 percent.



Southwest Airlines said that business travel particularly has softened a lot and shows up in the lower sales of tickets at full price. The airline has warned that their revenue outlook for the remainder of the year is more cautious, which is a consequence of the continued decline of booking and revenue trends, as well as the environment of the economy.



For November and December of last year, the traffic for Southwest Airlines was down to 10.2 billion revenue passenger miles, a decrease of six percent. This followed an increase of traffic of 1.7 percent for the entire year. Last year, the airline earned $178 million on a revenue of $11 billion.



For the first time in Southwest Airlines’ history, they are planning to cut capacity this year while airlines around the globe are struggling in the middle of weak air travel demand because of the recession. The carrier has been offering aggressive sales on fares in order to boost traffic for the spring and summer months. Analysts are suggesting that the further cuts in capacity are coming in the near future.