Southwest On Pace To Be World's Top Airline For 2007 Passenger Traffic

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Southwest Airlines Co. is on pace to unseat American Airlines this year as the world's biggest airline, measured by passenger traffic. <br/><br/>The domestic-only discount carrier

Thursday, August 16th 2007, 6:17 pm

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Southwest Airlines Co. is on pace to unseat American Airlines this year as the world's biggest airline, measured by passenger traffic.

The domestic-only discount carrier already eclipsed American's combined domestic and international traffic during the first five months of 2007, according to a government tally released Thursday.

Southwest carried 40.3 million passengers on domestic routes between January and May, an increase of 4.2 percent from last year.

American, owned by AMR Corp., carried 40 million passengers during the January-May period, down 1.8 percent from last year's levels. American's international traffic for that five month period was 8.7 million, up 0.3 percent in the first five months; its domestic traffic of 31.3 million was down 2.4 percent.

Last year, Dallas-based Southwest was the No. 2 airline worldwide, according to International Air Transport Association passenger traffic statistics. It carried about 96.3 million passengers, ranking behind Fort Worth, Texas-based American, which carried about 100 million passengers.

American has been the top U.S. airline for the past five years, according to the Transportation Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Rounding out the top five were Delta Air Lines Inc., UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and Northwest Airlines Corp.

Overall passenger traffic on U.S. airlines in the first five months of the year was up 1.8 percent from last year, with 307.9 million total passengers.

In May, U.S. airlines carried 64.7 million passengers, up 0.4 percent from the same month last year.

Shares of AMR rose 34 cents to $22.40 in after-hours trading Thursday after rising 86 cents, or 4 percent to close at $22.07. Shares of Southwest fell 2 cents to close at $15.17.