So, how is MSP-MDW going for Southwest? Well, DOT data provides lots of route information, but that won’t be released for a bit longer. But, MSP released its March operations report last week. Since Southwest only has one route and and flies only 737s, it’s easy to estimate a load factor.
MSP reports that Southwest had 40,745 revenue passengers in March, and a total of 372 operations. Let’s assume that all of the flights were operated with 737-700s or 737-300s, which each have 137 seats (the -500s have 15 fewer seats). That would yield a total of 50,964 seats. So, divide those two numbers and we get a load factor of 79.9%.
That seems like a very healthy number for brand new service to me. Of course, this data doesn’t provide anything about revenue so it’s hard to say how profitable the new service has been. But, this early data suggests that Southwest is off to a good start in Minneapolis.
With hind sight it looks like it was doing well enough for SWA to add 3 daily flights from MSP to DEN.
DOT T-100 reports can be mined to show available seats in a nonstop market as well as seats sold. Easy division to find an average load factor on carriers operating different aircraft types or configurations on the same route.