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(Mark One)

     For the quarterly period ended September 30, 2024

Commission File No. 1-7259

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant's telephone number, including area code:  (214) 792-4000

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.  Yes x  No ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).  Yes x  No ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer," "smaller reporting company," and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).Yes ☐ No x

Number of shares of Common Stock outstanding as of the close of business on October 24, 2024: 599,737,219 TABLE OF CONTENTS TO FORM 10-Q

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024 and 2023

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO.

FORM 10-Q

PART I – FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Item 1. Financial Statements

(unaudited)

			September 30, 2024						December 31, 2023
ASSETS
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents			$	8,503					$	9,288
Short-term investments			879						2,186
Accounts and other receivables			1,177						1,154
Inventories of parts and supplies, at cost			770						807
Prepaid expenses and other current assets			601						520
Total current assets			11,930						13,955
Property and equipment, at cost:
Flight equipment			26,394						26,060
Ground property and equipment			7,955						7,460
Deposits on flight equipment purchase contracts			428						236
Assets constructed for others			87						62
			34,864						33,818
Less allowance for depreciation and amortization			15,091						14,443
			19,773						19,375
Goodwill			970						970
Operating lease right-of-use assets			1,101						1,223
Other assets			1,073						964
			$	34,847					$	36,487
LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable			$	1,518					$	1,862
Accrued liabilities			2,096						3,606
Current operating lease liabilities			202						208
Air traffic liability			6,743						6,551
Current maturities of long-term debt			2,930						29
Total current liabilities			13,489						12,256
Long-term debt less current maturities			5,075						7,978
Air traffic liability - noncurrent			1,957						1,728
Deferred income taxes			2,094						2,044
Noncurrent operating lease liabilities			888						985
Other noncurrent liabilities			933						981
Stockholders' equity:
Common stock			888						888
Capital in excess of par value			4,180						4,153
Retained earnings			16,178						16,297
Accumulated other comprehensive income			(37)						—
Treasury stock, at cost			(10,798)						(10,823)
Total stockholders' equity			10,411						10,515
			$	34,847					$	36,487

    

(unaudited)

(unaudited)

(unaudited)

(unaudited)

10. Financing Activities

11. Shareholder Rights Plan

1.    BASIS OF PRESENTATION

Southwest Airlines Co. (the "Company" or "Southwest") operates Southwest Airlines, a major passenger airline that provides scheduled air transportation in the United States and near-international markets. The unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements include accounts of the Company and its wholly owned subsidiaries.

The accompanying unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of the Company and its subsidiaries have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP") for complete financial statements. The unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements for the interim periods ended September 30, 2024 and 2023 include all adjustments which are, in the opinion of management, necessary for a fair presentation of the results for the interim periods. This includes all normal and recurring adjustments and elimination of significant intercompany transactions. Financial results for the Company and airlines in general can be seasonal in nature. In many years, the Company's revenues, as well as its Operating income and Net income, have performed better in its second and third fiscal quarters than in its first and fourth fiscal quarters. Air travel is also significantly impacted by general economic conditions, the amount of disposable income available to consumers and changes in consumer behavior, unemployment levels, corporate travel budgets, global pandemics, extreme or severe weather and natural disasters, fears of terrorism or war, governmental actions, and other factors beyond the Company's control. These and other factors, such as the price of jet fuel in some periods, the nature of the Company's fuel hedging program, and the periodic volatility of commodities used by the Company for hedging jet fuel, have created, and may continue to create, significant volatility in the Company's financial results. See Note 3 for further information on fuel and the Company's fuel hedging program. Operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024, are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for future quarters or for the year ended December 31, 2024. For further information, refer to the Consolidated Financial Statements and footnotes thereto included in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023.

In late December 2022, the Company experienced a wide-scale operational disruption as extreme winter weather across a significant portion of the United States impacted its operational plan and flight schedules. Subsequent to Winter Storm Elliott, the Company was challenged to realign flight crews, flight schedules, and aircraft for a period of several days during this peak demand travel period. This disruption and subsequent recovery efforts resulted in the cancellation of more than 16,700 flights during the period from December 21 through December 31, 2022. These events also created a deceleration in bookings, primarily isolated to January and February 2023, as well as increased first quarter 2023 expenses by approximately $55 million, which are included in the accompanying unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income for the nine months ended September 30, 2023. These first quarter 2023 expenses included reimbursements to Customers impacted by the cancellations for costs they incurred in excess of the amounts accrued as of December 31, 2022, adjustments to the estimated value of Rapid Rewards points offered as a gesture of goodwill to Customers as a result of changes in the estimates of the points expected to be redeemed, and additional premium pay and additional compensation for Employees directly or indirectly impacted by the cancellations and recovery efforts.

Based on the Company's wide-scale operational disruption, the Company has been subject to inquiries and investigations by governmental agencies (including with respect to a December 2023 settlement with the Department of Transportation) and could be subject to fines and/or penalties resulting from those inquiries and investigations, as well as litigation from Customers and Shareholders.

During second quarter 2024, the Company identified certain Boeing 737-700 ("-700") aircraft that are planned for early retirement in 2025. These accelerated retirement dates, and the corresponding impact to depreciation expense, are considered a change in estimate and resulted in the following impact to Depreciation and amortization expense for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024:

* net of profitsharing benefit and income taxes

2.    NEW ACCOUNTING PRONOUNCEMENTS

On December 14, 2023, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the "FASB") issued Accounting Standards Update ("ASU") 2023-09, Income Taxes (Topic 740): Improvements to Income Tax Disclosures. This standard increases transparency and decision usefulness of income tax disclosures for investors by requiring information to better assess how an entity's operations and related tax risks and tax planning and operational opportunities affect its tax rate and prospects for future cash flows. This standard requires entities to provide enhanced disclosures related to the income tax rate reconciliation and income taxes paid. This standard is effective for all entities that are subject to Topic 740, Income Taxes for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2024, but early adoption is permitted. The Company has evaluated this new standard and does not expect it to have a significant impact on its financial statement disclosures. The Company will adopt this standard as of January 1, 2025.

On November 27, 2023, the FASB issued ASU 2023-07, Segment Reporting (Topic 280): Improvements to Reportable Segment Disclosures. This standard improves reportable segment disclosures by adding and enhancing interim disclosure requirements, clarifying circumstances in which entities can disclose multiple segment measures of profit or loss, providing new segment disclosure requirements for entities with a single reportable segment, and adding other disclosure requirements. This standard is effective for all entities that are subject to Topic 280, Segment Reporting for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2023, and interim periods within fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2024, but early adoption is permitted. This standard is applicable to the Company due to the single reportable segment requirement. The Company plans on including all required disclosures within its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024.

3.    FINANCIAL DERIVATIVE INSTRUMENTS

Airline operators are inherently dependent upon energy to operate and, therefore, are impacted by changes in jet fuel prices. Furthermore, jet fuel typically represents one of the largest operating expenses for airlines. The Company endeavors to acquire jet fuel at the lowest possible net cost and to reduce volatility in operating expenses through its fuel hedging program.

The Company has used financial derivative instruments for both short-term and long-term timeframes, and historically has used a mixture of purchased call options, collar structures (which include both a purchased call option and a sold put option), call spreads (which include a purchased call option and a sold call option), put spreads (which include a purchased put option and a sold put option), and fixed price swap agreements in its portfolio. The Company does not purchase or hold any financial derivative instruments for trading or speculative purposes.

For the purpose of evaluating its net cash spend for jet fuel and for forecasting its future estimated jet fuel expense, the Company evaluates its hedge volumes strictly from an "economic" standpoint and, thus, does not consider whether the hedges have qualified or will qualify for hedge accounting. The Company defines its "economic" hedge as the net volume of fuel derivative contracts held, including the impact of positions that have been offset through sold positions, regardless of whether those contracts qualify for hedge accounting. The level at which the Company is economically hedged for a particular period is also dependent on current market prices for that period, as well as the types of derivative instruments held and the strike prices of those instruments.

For example, the Company may enter into "out-of-the-money" option contracts (including "catastrophic" protection, which the Company defines as prices significantly higher than historical average levels), which may not generate intrinsic gains at settlement if market prices do not rise above the option strike price. Therefore, even though the Company may have an economic hedge in place for a particular period, that hedge may not produce any hedging gains at settlement and may even produce hedging losses depending on market prices, the types of instruments held, and the strike prices of those instruments.

As of September 30, 2024, the Company had fuel derivative instruments in place to provide coverage at varying price levels. The following table provides information about the Company’s volume of fuel hedged on an economic basis:

(a) Due to the types of derivatives utilized by the Company and different price levels of those contracts, these volumes represent the maximum economic hedge in place and may vary significantly as market prices fluctuate and if the Company's published flight schedule or capacity plans change.

Upon proper qualification, the Company accounts for its fuel derivative instruments as cash flow hedges. Qualification is re-evaluated quarterly, and all periodic changes in fair value of the derivatives designated as hedges are recorded in Accumulated other comprehensive income ("AOCI") until the underlying jet fuel is consumed. See Note 4.

When the Company has sold derivative positions in order to effectively "close" or offset a derivative already held as part of its fuel hedging portfolio, any subsequent changes in fair value of those positions are marked to market through the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income. Likewise, any changes in fair value of those positions that were offset by entering into the sold positions and were de-designated as hedges are concurrently marked to market through the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income. However, any changes in value related to hedges that were deferred as part of AOCI while designated as a hedge would remain until the originally forecasted transaction occurs. In a situation where it becomes probable that a fuel hedged forecasted transaction will not occur, any gains and/or losses that have been recorded to AOCI would be required to be immediately reclassified into the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income. During third quarter 2024, the routine statistical analysis performed by the Company to determine which commodities qualify for special hedge accounting treatment on a prospective basis indicated that WTI crude oil-based derivatives no longer qualify for hedge accounting. This change is primarily due to the fact that the correlation between WTI crude oil prices and jet fuel prices during recent periods has not been as strong as in the past, and therefore the Company can no longer demonstrate that derivatives based on WTI crude oil prices will result in effective hedges on a prospective basis. As such, all WTI-based instruments have been de-designated from their hedging relationships and the change in fair value of all of the Company's derivatives based in WTI have been recorded to Other (gains) losses for third quarter 2024, and will also be marked to market in the same manner in fourth quarter 2024. The Company currently has no WTI crude oil based derivatives that settle beyond December 31, 2024. The change in fair value of the Company's WTI derivative contracts during third quarter 2024 was a decrease of $23 million, which resulted in a corresponding loss in the Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income. Any amounts previously recorded to AOCI will remain there until such time as the original forecasted transaction occurs in accordance with hedge accounting requirements.

All cash flows associated with purchasing and selling fuel derivatives are classified as Other operating cash flows in the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows. The following table presents the location of all assets and liabilities associated with the Company’s derivative instruments within the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet:

(a) Represents the position of each trade before consideration of offsetting positions with each counterparty and does not include the impact of cash collateral deposits provided to or received from counterparties. See discussion of credit risk and collateral following in this Note.

In addition, the Company had the following amounts associated with fuel derivative instruments and hedging activities in its unaudited Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet:

 

All of the Company's derivative instruments are subject to agreements that follow the netting guidance in the applicable accounting standards for derivatives and hedging. The types of derivative instruments the Company has determined are subject to netting requirements in the accompanying unaudited Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet are those in which the Company pays or receives cash for transactions with the same counterparty and in the same currency via one net payment or receipt. For cash collateral held by the Company or provided to counterparties, the Company nets such amounts against the fair value of the Company's derivative portfolio by each counterparty. The Company has elected to utilize netting for its derivative instruments and also classifies such amounts as either current or noncurrent, based on the net fair value position with each of the Company's counterparties in the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet. If the Company's fuel derivative instruments are in a net asset position with a counterparty, cash collateral amounts held are first netted against current outstanding derivative asset amounts associated with that counterparty until that balance is zero, and then any remainder is applied against the fair value of noncurrent outstanding derivative instruments.

The Company had the following recognized financial assets and financial liabilities resulting from those transactions that meet the scope of the disclosure requirements as necessitated by applicable accounting guidance for balance sheet offsetting:

The following tables present the impact of derivative instruments and their location within the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024 and 2023: