Southwest Airlines Reports Increases

Southwest Airlines Co. announced Tuesday that the company flew 2.9 billion revenue passenger miles in June, a 16 percent increase over the 2.5 billion flown in June 1997.

Revenue passenger mileage is an industry-wide measure of the number of passengers multiplied by the number of miles flown.

During the same period, the airline’s capacity rose only 6.5 percent. That resulted in the average plane being filled to 72.7 percent of capacity, up 6.2 percent from June 1997. The average capacity for the year to date is 65.8 percent, up 2.8 percent from the same period last year.