Southwest knocks industry optimists: ‘We’re not in control’

Southwest’s CEO had blunt words for industry peers who have predicted that carriers will stop bleeding cash this year, saying it all comes down to the coronavirus pandemic. “The fact of the matter is, we’re not in control,” Gary Kelly said Thursday. His comments came after Delta offered a rosy outlook when it reported earnings earlier this month. Kelly’s sober outlook summed up the uncertainty over how the pandemic will affect travel in the coming weeks. Will the spring break across the US bring increased demand for leisure flights? Airline executives said they couldn’t predict. For this quarter, at least, Southwest and two other carriers that also reported results -- American Airlines and JetBlue -- don’t expect much improvement. “We just don’t know what twists and turns that this pandemic will take,” Kelly said. When Delta posted earnings two weeks ago, it said it had a “good shot” at turning a Q3 profit and stood firm that it could break even on a cash-flow basis in Q2. By contrast, Kelly and his team kept adding cautious notes in a day of interviews and at its conference call. “We’re just reluctant to make any bold predictions,” Kelly said. “At this point, we certainly have bookings out there in March, but I’m not drawing any conclusions whatsoever from them.”<br/>