Southwest sees milestone after booking unaided June profit

Dallas — Southwest Airlines turned a profit in June without assistance from the U.S., which the company is calling a milestone in its recovery from the pandemic.

Net income reached $348 million, reversing last year's loss in the same stretch.

Per share profit was 57 cents per share, but it was a loss of 35 cents per-share when one-time events are included. That was worse than the per-share loss of 21 cents that Wall Street expected, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.

Shares dipped 1.5% before the opening bell Thursday.

Revenue, at $4.01 billion was better than projected, however.

“Second quarter 2021 marked an important milestone in the pandemic recovery as leisure travel demand surged," said Chairman and CEO Gary Kelly. "We generated net income in June 2021, representing our first monthly profit without taking into account the benefit of temporary salaries and wages cost relief provided by PSP proceeds, since the negative effects of the pandemic began in March 2020.

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A portion of this story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on LUV at https://www.zacks.com/ap/LUV