Basis of Presentation |
6 Months Ended | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Jun. 30, 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| BASIS OF PRESENTATION | BASIS OF PRESENTATION Basis of Presentation Southwest Airlines Co. (the "Company" or "Southwest") operates Southwest Airlines, a major passenger airline that provides scheduled air transportation in the United States and near-international markets. The unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements include accounts of the Company and its wholly owned subsidiaries. The accompanying unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of the Company and its subsidiaries have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP") for complete financial statements as required in Form 10-K. The unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements for the interim periods ended June 30, 2026 and 2025 include all adjustments which are, in the opinion of management, necessary for a fair presentation of the results for the interim periods. This includes all normal and recurring adjustments and elimination of significant intercompany transactions. Financial results for the Company and airlines in general can be seasonal in nature. In most markets the Company serves, demand for air travel has historically been greater, and, therefore, revenues in the airline industry tend to be stronger, during the summer months and peak travel periods, including holidays. As a result, in many cases, the Company's results of operations reflect this seasonality. However, air travel is also significantly impacted by general economic conditions, the amount of disposable income available to consumers and changes in consumer behavior, unemployment levels, corporate travel budgets, global pandemics, extreme or severe weather and natural disasters, fears or actual acts of terrorism or war, governmental actions, and other factors beyond the Company's control. These and other factors, such as the price of jet fuel in some periods, have created, and may continue to create, significant volatility in the Company's financial results. Operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2026, are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for future quarters or for the year ended December 31, 2026. For further information, refer to the Consolidated Financial Statements and footnotes thereto included in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025. Breakage Revenue During second quarter 2026, in association with its former policy in which flight credits (funds that may be applied towards future travel) did not expire, the Company determined that a reversal of a portion of previously recognized, prior years' breakage revenue was warranted. Following the Company's prior policy decision in July 2022 to eliminate the expiration date on flight credits issued, approximately $7.9 billion in non-expiring flight credits were issued by the Company between July 2022 and December 2025, and the Company had previously estimated, based on both historical and projected redemption behavior at that time, approximately 23 percent of those non-expiring flight credits would not be redeemed by Customers, and correspondingly recorded estimated breakage revenue for those amounts over the time period July 2022 through December 2025. Based on the most recent flight credit redemption trends and updated projections of future redemptions for the remaining available non-expiring flight credits, the Company now believes that approximately 20 percent of the non-expiring flight credits originally issued between July 2022 and December 2025 will not be redeemed by Customers. Approximately $1.8 billion of such flight credits remain available as of June 30, 2026. As a result of this change in estimate, the Company is recording a second quarter 2026 reversal of breakage revenue of $285 million. No breakage revenue related to this population of non-expiring flight credits was recognized in first half 2026; thus, the entire amount of the second quarter 2026 breakage revenue reversal relates to years 2022 through 2025. The timing of this adjustment in the second quarter 2026 was impacted by a combination of quantitative trends and qualitative factors affecting Customer behavior, including the Company's recent significant business transformation initiatives, changes to fare products and distribution channels, and changes to its flight credit policies. These factors altered historical Customer redemption patterns and reduced the predictive value of historical information observed during the period in which the credits were issued. As a result, management determined that Customer behavior observed through the second quarter of 2026 provided a more reliable basis for estimating the ultimate level of unredeemed flight credits than had previously been determined. The Company implemented a change to its flight credit policy, in which flight credits created from reservations booked and ticketed or voluntarily changed on or after May 28, 2025, will typically have a specified expiration date of one year or less, depending on the type of fare purchased and form of payment used. However, some non-expiring flight credits continued to be issued subsequent to May 28, 2025, primarily due to reservations for future travel that were already in place as of that date that were subsequently modified or cancelled. This second quarter 2026 breakage revenue adjustment, and its corresponding increase to Air Traffic Liability, resulted in the following impact to results:
* net of profit-sharing benefit and income taxes Breakage estimates are based on Customers' historical travel behavior as well as assumptions about their future travel behavior. Assumptions about the Customers' future travel behavior can be impacted by several factors including but not limited to: fare increases; fare sales; changes to the Company's ticketing policies; changes to the Company’s refund, exchange, and unused flight credit policies; seat availability; economic factors; and the Company's observations about changes in actual Customer use of flight credits. See Note 5 for further information. Operating Segments and Related Disclosures The Company's chief operating decision maker, the Company's President, Chief Executive Officer, & Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, assesses performance for the Company's single reportable segment and decides how to allocate resources based on its Net income or loss (see the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income). For single reportable segment-level financial information, total assets, revenues from external Customers, depreciation and amortization expense, interest income and interest expense, provision for income taxes, other non-operating expenses, and significant non-cash transactions, see Item 1. Financial Statements.
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