Southwest Airlines planning to focus on increasing profits, not expanding

Southwest Airlines CFO, Laura Wright, made the following comments at the JP Morgan Aviation, Transportation & Defense conference:

• Expansion plans: The carrier plans to focus on increasing profits, rather than growing (Associated Press, 09-Mar-2010). Despite a number of airports lobbying for Southwest services, the carrier has so far only announced one new market for the year, Panama City, FL.
• New York LaGuardia: Southwest is interested in expanding from New York LaGuardia, if it is able to obtain more slots (The Dallas Morning News, 09-Mar-2010);
• Fleet: Expecting little change to its fleet of over 530 B737 aircraft this year.

Southwest Airlines: "It's not a secret that we'd like more slots [at LGA]. If we could get more slots at LGA, we would take them. We don't have an expectation to have 100 flights a day at LaGuardia, but we know we've got demands for more than the eight that we have today," Laura Wright, CFO. Source: The Dallas Morning News, 09-Mar-2010.