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Basis of Presentation | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2023
Accounting Policies [Abstract] |
BASIS OF PRESENTATION | 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. In late December 2022, the Company experienced a wide-scale operational disruption as historically 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. The Company returned to a normal operating schedule on December 30, 2022. 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. For first quarter 2023, these events also created a deceleration in bookings, primarily isolated to January and February 2023, as well as increased expenses of approximately $55 million, which are included in the accompanying unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income (Loss) for the three months ended March 31, 2023. These 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. The financial impacts of the event to the Company also included the elimination of profitsharing expenses for the quarter. The continuing effects of this event significantly contributed to the Company recording a net loss for first quarter 2023 in the amount of $159 million. 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 March 31, 2023 and 2022 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 been 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 such as COVID-19, 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 hedging program. Operating results for the three months ended March 31, 2023, are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for future quarters or for the year ended December 31, 2023. 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, 2022. Certain prior period amounts have been reclassified to conform to the current presentation. In the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income for the three months ended March 31, 2022, the Company has reclassified $72 million from Other (gains) losses, net to Loss on extinguishment of debt.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for the basis of accounting, or basis of presentation, used to prepare the financial statements (for example, US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, Other Comprehensive Basis of Accounting, IFRS). + References Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 235 -URI https://asc.fasb.org/topic&trid=2122369 + Details
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