What to expect when Southwest Airlines (LUV) reports Q2 2025 earnings results

Shares of Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) rose over 1% on Monday. The stock has gained 52% over the past three months. The airline is slated to report its earnings results for the second quarter of 2025 on Thursday, July 24, before markets open. Here’s a look at what to expect from the earnings report:

Revenue

Analysts are projecting revenue of $7.30 billion for Southwest in the second quarter of 2025. This signals a slight dip from the $7.35 billion reported in the second quarter of 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, operating revenues increased around 2% year-over-year to $6.42 billion.

Earnings

The consensus target for earnings per share in Q2 2025 is $0.52, which compares to $0.58 reported in Q2 2024. In Q1 2025, the company reported adjusted loss of $0.13 per share.

Points to note

Southwest is likely to have faced headwinds in the second quarter from a challenging macro environment and inflationary pressures that may have impacted travel demand. Domestic travel demand trends, in particular, can have a meaningful impact on the company’s performance.

LUV expects its unit revenue for the second quarter of 2025 to be flat to down 4% YoY and capacity to be up 1-2% YoY. The airline expects unit costs, excluding fuel, to increase 3.5-5.5% in Q2, driven by inflationary pressures. Fuel cost per gallon is expected to be $2.20-2.30 in Q2.

In the first quarter, unit revenues increased 3.5% YoY while capacity was down 1.9%. Unit costs, ex-fuel, was up 4.6% YoY. Traffic was down 7.4%. Passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) was up 3.7% YoY.