Southwest CEO sees ‘really rough months’ looming for early 2021

Southwest expects depressed travel amid the nationwide surge in coronavirus cases and typically weak seasonal demand to combine for a difficult start to 2021 for the industry. “January and February are bound to be really rough months -- winter time, high case loads -- and they are seasonally soft anyway,” CEO Gary Kelly said Thursday. “We can get started on the vaccine process and get started on recovery, but we’ve got a long way to go.” Kelly’s grim outlook added to recent warnings from other airlines that a bookings slowdown that started before Thanksgiving has persisted this month. The industry has struggled to stimulate demand that’s been pummeled by the pandemic. Domestic travel remains only about one-third of last year’s levels, and international demand has lingered at about 15% amid quarantines and travel restrictions. While Kelly expects Southwest to lose less money in the fourth quarter than its $1.2b deficit in the third, “the revenue environment is still depressed... You have to be grounded in the reality that this is really difficult, it’s not a quick fix. No one knows exactly how this will play out and when.” Southwest will add more cities to its network beyond the 10 it had already announced for this year and next, Kelly said. By using idled workers and planes parked during low demand, the airline can enter the destinations at relatively low cost, he said.<br/>