Southwest Airlines Company (LUV) — Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Southwest Airlines Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. In just a moment, we will share our prepared remarks, after which we will move into Q&A. I am joined today by our President, CEO and Vice Chairman of the Board, Bob Jordan; Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Watterson; and Chief Financial Officer, Tom Doxey. A quick reminder that we will make forward-looking statements, which are based on our current expectations of future performance, and our actual results could differ materially from expectations. Also, we will reference our non-GAAP results which excludes special items that are called out and reconciled to GAAP results in our earnings press release. Our press release for the third quarter 2025 results and supplemental information, including our initiative highlights, were both issued yesterday afternoon and are available on our Investor Relations website. And now I am pleased to turn the call over to you, Bob.

Thank you, Lauren, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. The third quarter was another story of continued strong execution across the board. Operational reliability, cost discipline, and the delivery of initiatives against our transformational plan. Southwest continues to transform at a faster pace than ever before, and I'm pleased with the results of our strategic transformation that we saw during the third quarter and the quality of the initiatives delivered. Both costs and revenue finished meaningfully ahead of expectations and the rollout and impact of our initiatives remain firmly on track. We began selling assigned extra legroom seating in July, a major milestone for our customer experience and product changes. The rollout was smooth and while still early, we're right on track with our expectations and we're already seeing a 4-point improvement in customer Net Promoter Score on aircraft with this new configuration. Additionally, we have continued to launch new products and services showing our commitment to meeting the needs of our customers and our ability to execute quickly. Starting tomorrow, we will be offering free WiFi sponsored by our partner, T-Mobile, for our Rapid Rewards members. We continue to roll out our updated cabins with larger overhead bins, in-seat power, upgraded lighting, and more. We expanded our distribution channels, launching a partnership with Priceline. We launched our new in-house vacation product, Getaways by Southwest. We announced a new partnership with EVA Air to provide customers more connection opportunities. We announced new markets, including the additions of Knoxville, Tennessee, St. Maarten, Santa Rosa, California, and our first-ever flights to Alaska, servicing Anchorage all to start in 2026 and we aren't done. While we don't have specifics to share today, we're actively looking at continued changes to widen our product offering for our customers, provide additional premium revenue opportunities, and further enhance our Rapid Rewards loyalty program and co-brand economics, including aspects like premium seating, airport lounges, and long-haul international destinations served by Southwest Airlines. Our customers are responding to these enhancements. Our brand Net Promoter Score has returned to the level seen prior to our policy changes announced in March and we are excited to deliver further enhancements as we improve the customer experience. Our strategic plan continues to progress well, and we're encouraged by the sustained outperformance of bag fee revenue and the momentum across other key revenue and cost initiatives. We saw a clear positive inflection in the demand environment beginning in early July, which continued throughout the quarter, and we are proud to report record third quarter revenue performance. Looking to the fourth quarter, we expect to deliver an all-time quarterly record revenue performance. We maintained strong cost discipline across the organization, significantly beating our CASM-X guide for the quarter. We have identified additional cost-saving opportunities in the back half of the year and remain confident in our full year EBIT guidance range of $600 million to $800 million. We are entering the fourth quarter with confidence and anticipate meaningful margin expansion as the benefits from our initiatives continue to mature as we execute our transformational plan. Our people delivered a strong operational performance throughout the quarter. Their dedication, resilience, and world-class hospitality continue to set Southwest apart. We've made measurable progress across nearly every key operational metric since January, and we continue to lead the industry as we track our performance against the Wall Street Journal airline's scorecard. These results stand out even more given the hurdles that we faced, including summer weather, ongoing ATC constraints, and the full rollout of reduced turn times across many of our stations, and it's a testament to our operational excellence and the heart of our company. While we're not providing 2026 guidance today, we're excited about the opportunities ahead and confident in our strategy. In 2026, we expect to recognize even greater benefits from our portfolio of Southwest-specific initiatives, including a full year of revenue from bag fees. We expect to deliver more than $1 billion of incremental EBIT from assigned extra legroom seating in 2026 and hit a full run rate of approximately $1.5 billion in 2027. We will continue to be disciplined in our cost execution across the organization and expect that momentum to continue into 2026. It's just an exciting time at Southwest Airlines. We're transforming faster than ever before and the momentum is real. And with that, I'll turn it over to Andrew to share more on our revenue and operational performance.

Thanks, Bob. I want to echo Bob's appreciation for our people. Their hard work and commitment enabled us to deliver an outstanding operation this quarter even in the face of early July weather challenges. We've come a long way over the past couple of years, working to enhance processes and technology and improve daily operations and better manage disruptions. A great example of this was in September when an external telecommunications issue in Dallas impacted radar, radio, and computer systems, triggering FAA ground stops at local airports. Despite our significant presence at Dallas Love Field Airport, we had just one cancellation, finishing second among all U.S. airlines for the day, including many that weren't directly affected by the issue. Our teams, particularly those in the NOC and at the station, responded quickly and effectively, keeping our operation running smoothly and reliably. We know reliability is one of the biggest drivers of customer Net Promoter Scores and a primary driver of loyalty, so it's critical that we continue to innovate and invest in both our operations and our people. The demand environment inflected up in early July and sustained momentum throughout the quarter. The improved demand environment and our execution of our initiatives contributed to our record third quarter revenue and to be in the midpoint of our third quarter guide with RASM coming in at up 0.4%. Even with increased capacity from our strong operational results and our ability to prolong the filling of the 6 removed seats on our 737-700 aircraft. We were pleased to see load factor up year-over-year in August, September, and so far in October. Corporate travel demand improved sequentially with a particularly strong September where we saw multipoint passenger growth. We're also seeing great traction with our loyalty program and co-brand credit card enhancements, which align with our new product offerings and incentivize everyday spending. Third quarter royalty revenue was up 7% and we saw double-digit growth in co-brand card acquisitions year-over-year. Our recent 100,000 point promotion saw the highest acquisition activity in over 5 years, signaling that these enhancements are resonating with customers and driving increased engagement. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect RASM to be in the range of up 1% to 3%. This outlook assumes the positive inflection in demand we've seen across the industry since early July remains at current levels through the end of the quarter. It also reflects the planned acceleration from our initiatives, the approximate 2-point year-over-year increase in fourth quarter capacity since July, and the recent observed impact of the government shutdown. To the extent demand strengthens beyond current levels, it will provide upside potential to our full year EBIT guide of $600 million to $800 million. We're planning for fourth quarter year-over-year capacity growth of approximately 6%, which compares to a relatively low base in fourth quarter 2024 compared with fourth quarter 2023; planned capacity is up about 1%. This capacity level now contemplates further pushing out the retrofit timing of our entire 737-700 fleet to be completed in January without any impact on the planned operate date for seat assignments and extra legroom seating on January 27. A big shout out goes to our tech ops team for streamlining the timeline to complete this work, allowing us to capture additional revenue in those 6 seats during the entire holiday period at almost no incremental cost. On the product side, we launched the sale of assigned extra legroom seating on July 29. While early bookings are in line with our expectations, we're seeing strong interest from customers and the trends are encouraging, including demand for our new products, fare product buy-up, and ancillary seat sales. These offerings are helping us differentiate and enhance our products and drive incremental revenue. We feel confident in our ability to deliver more than $1 billion of incremental EBIT from assigned extra legroom seating in 2026 and hit a full run rate of $1.5 billion in 2027. We're proud of the progress we've made and excited about what's ahead. With that, I'll turn it over to Tom.

Thanks, Andrew, and hello, everyone. As you've heard from both Bob and Andrew, our initiatives are on track for this year, and we expect further acceleration in contribution from these initiatives into the fourth quarter and into next year according to our plan. As you know, our continued performance on costs is a key element of our transformation, and I am pleased to once again report that we delivered strong cost performance this quarter, with CASM-X coming in at up 2.5%, beating the midpoint of our guide by 2 points—a strong beat with or without the capacity increase we saw in the quarter. We continue to see broad-based cost discipline across the entire business. I should also emphasize that this is more about spending smartly than it is about simply cutting costs. We're simply pushing costs forward, as evidenced by the customer, technology, and operational investments being made across Southwest Airlines. This was a company-wide effort, and I want to thank our teams for their focus and execution. Looking to the fourth quarter, we are expecting strong continued cost execution with CASM-X up in the range of 1.5% to 2.5% on capacity of approximately 6%, both on a year-over-year basis. Excluding the impact of expected book gains from fleet transactions in the fourth quarter of both years, which gives a more accurate view of the cost performance of the underlying base business, we expect CASM-X to be in the range of flat to up 1% year-over-year. Turning to fleet, Boeing continues to hit their delivery plan, and we've increased our 2025 delivery assumptions from 47 to 53 Boeing 737-8 aircraft. We received 8 aircraft deliveries in the third quarter and retired 16 aircraft from our fleet, including the sale of one 737-800 aircraft and plan to sell 4 additional 737-800 aircraft in the fourth quarter. We will continue to be opportunistic as we evaluate potential sale transactions from our existing fleet. We continue to expect full year 2025 capital spending to be in the range of $2.5 billion to $3 billion, which includes the additional aircraft deliveries expected this year as well as the expected proceeds from aircraft sales. We finished the quarter with $3 billion in cash, in line with our liquidity target of $4.5 billion, including our revolver and with a gross leverage ratio of 2.1x within our target range of 1 to 2.5x. We also executed an accelerated share repurchase program in the amount of $250 million under the previously announced $2 billion authorization. We intend to continue opportunistically repurchasing shares based on market conditions. This reflects our continued confidence in our strategy and our commitment to returning value to shareholders. Overall, our third quarter performance was ahead of our expectations for cost, revenue, and net income, which is another key milestone as we execute our transformational plan. We're managing costs well, executing our initiatives, investing in our product and customer experience, running an industry-leading operation, maintaining a strong and efficient investment-grade balance sheet, and we remain confident in our ability to achieve our full year EBIT guide of $600 million to $800 million. And with that, I'll hand it back to Bob.

Thanks, Tom. As we wrap up, I want to leave you with a few key thoughts. First, the pace of change at Southwest is accelerating and at the same time, our execution has never been stronger. We're transforming our product, enhancing the customer experience, and delivering meaningful financial improvement, all thanks to the incredible work of our people. Second, we're confident in our ability to hit our fourth quarter and our full year guide. We built a strong foundation, and our initiatives are ramping as planned. The operational rollout of assigned extra legroom seating has been smooth, and we're seeing encouraging early results. Third, we're not stopping here. We've continued to evolve our product, expand our network, and lean into the customer experience. Free WiFi for Rapid Rewards members starts tomorrow. New markets are launching, and we're building momentum across the business. And while we aren't ready to share specifics just yet, work on the longer-term strategy to meet evolving customer preferences is well underway. Finally, I want to thank our employees once again. Their excellence and hospitality are unmatched, and they are the driving force behind our success. It's a very exciting time at Southwest Airlines. We're executing with urgency and purpose, and we're confident in the future we're building and the benefits it will provide for our shareholders. Thank you all for joining us today. And with that, I'll pass it back to Lauren to start our Q&A.

Thank you, Bob. This completes our prepared remarks.

I was hoping you could frame up the sequential improvement that you're seeing into the fourth quarter versus what you were messaging in September. I'm just trying to understand the building blocks there. I realize that capacity is a little bit higher, but I think you knew that was going to be happening. And just if you could just talk about specifically around the new initiatives. Is that still 2 points? And does that carry into the first quarter of next year, just thoughts around the moving parts on unit revenue?

Yes, Conor. It's Bob. I'll give it a start. I think it's pretty simple, and it's a couple of things. We have the 2 points of added capacity that you referenced, and that's just delaying the retrofits of the 700s into January that allows us to fly those extra 6 seats through the holidays and just capture extra revenue in a peak demand period. Real proud of our tech ops folks because they can get all those retrofits done now in January. So that's the 2 points of capacity. And then we've got 2 other points; really, we just chose to not assume that the macro would inflect further from where we are. You heard we had a solid inflection in July that has maintained itself. But we didn't want to assume further macro inflection simply because you've got some uncertainty and, in particular, it's uncertainty around the government shutdown and its impact and then obviously, its duration. So we felt it was prudent to guide assuming that things are stable from here, that the demand does not inflect further. And then yes, you've got on the RASM front, you've got a tailwind as the initiatives continue to kick in. All of the initiatives are on track. They're on track from a benefit perspective and they are on track from a timing of delivery perspective. But it's really just those 2 points of not assuming that the macro would continue to inflect further.

Yes. I'd say, Bob, we've seen past government shutdowns, right? And we know what happens when they go on. First, you see government travel go to zero very quickly. Then it goes to government-adjacent than overall business travel then leisure travel, as we saw in 2018, 2019. Obviously, like everyone else, we experienced the government stopping travel very quickly. But last week, we did see government-adjacent. This is state and local governments, depending upon government reimbursement. These are defense contractors—these are companies that kind of do business with the government—and they held up until last week, and they went down sequentially. So through that, more as a canary in the coal mine, it's not material numbers that we're talking about between those 2 categories that we observed but we know what happens in the future. So if you're uncertain about when the government shut down ends, that makes you less able to assume an economic inflection. And so it all is tied up with, I think, when the government shutdown ends.

And Conor, just the last kind of maybe connect your tangent to that is either way, whatever happens to the macro or whatever happens with the shutdown, we're committed to hitting our 2025 reaffirmed EBIT guide. We're not sitting around waiting for the macro to show up as an example. We're going to continue to press on other areas, particularly costs like you saw with pressure and beat on CASM-X in Q3 that just adds more assurance around meeting that full-year guide. So don't take that as we're just waiting to see. We're absolutely working proactively to put some insurance around the guide irrespective of what the macro does, what the government shutdown does.

Am I allowed to follow up? Can I just follow up to that? Just on—so I guess the pushback that I've heard is that basically, you've added 2 points to incremental capacity. And it's basically—it's almost like that's almost a zero revenue contribution. I mean, you're going to get a natural uplift in overall growth. I just like—maybe you—could you just frame up like why was it the right decision to add that incremental growth? I understand that there's a cost benefit. I would have thought costs would have moved down a little bit more. So just how you're balancing that in general on that decision?

Sure. I mean, first of all, it's an EBIT guide, not a RASM guide. It did imply a RASM, what you're asking about, but the decision because the tech ops team has been much more productive, we will be doing them faster. So when you do it faster, it overall costs less money and then also that lower number shifts into Q1. And then for the seats, there is incremental and the high periods during the holidays. Now we did this late in the curve, so you won't— the non-holiday portion won't benefit that much. So it is very RASM-dilutive, but it's very EBIT accretive because that little bit of revenue plus the cost going down makes it EBIT-positive to do that, which is what our guidance is about and what our objective is about is EBIT even though it will make RASM look unflattering in Q4. And so that was the decision-making behind it.

Just some questions maybe, Andrew or Tom, just some stats on some of the initiatives, even rough numbers. What we could see in the quarter we did see an inflection on at least connections. It looked like your enplanements outpaced passengers. And presumably, that helped your load factor, which was much better this quarter than where we were in the beginning of the year. And how—and also on the basic economy rollout, what are you seeing on the buy-up? I think there was a point where maybe the majority of Southwest tickets were sold in the bottom fare bucket. I suspect that—that's been moving up. Any color or stats that you can provide on some of the initiatives that you put in with respect to those?

Yes, I'd be happy to. So yes, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we did see, as we had predicted, that load factor would inflect positively post summer. So August, September, October had year-over-year increases in a load factor that came from the enhanced connectivity we talked about. It came from the third-party channels and also I think some of the basic rollout, which allows you to kind of have a more segmented offering, which means your highs get higher and your lows get lower. So that allows for good targeted volume. So we're on track as far as that goes. So switching from yield driving our RASM to load factor driving our RASM, which is kind of what we indicated earlier in the year. As far as the buy-up, the buy-up out of the bottom basic, we need that to inflect really positively with seats. In the interim, we have improvements that go about mid-single-digit points of increase in optional buy-out, those who decide to buy up to the second, third, or fourth, we did see good traction with that. The big step-up will come in Q1. But in the interim, it is a positive move.

And from a financial standpoint, everything is on track for the initiatives. And so everything that we're seeing for assigned seats and extra legroom is very much on track to—still relatively early for the late January start for operating that. But all the data that we have so far shows that that's still on track. And the other suite of initiatives, as Bob said, is also on track.

And if you look sort of getting into maybe granular, what Tom was saying, again, it's early, there are limited bookings in place post January '26 when the—when the bookings started for travel for the new assigned seating extra legroom. But both volume—the mix of fare products is what Andrew was referencing—basic should fall further as an example. And then what we're seeing in terms of ancillary seat buy-up, all of those things are encouraging and on track. Again, it's early, but I'm really pleased with that. And then again, while we're not literally selling extra legroom for assigned seating, we're selling it for after January, but we have aircraft out there that have the extra-legroom retrofit configuration, and folks flying on those aircraft, we have more than 400 converted, are giving us a 4-point higher NPS score than those without and that's without being able to book yourself into extra legroom. That's just they're flying on an aircraft that has that section reconfigured. So that's very encouraging as well from a customer experience perspective.

And I guess to put an exclamation point to that, Bob, we see literally a knife-edge on January '27 in our bookings of pre and post assigned seating; we see a knife-edge yield improvement. So clearly, customers are voting with their wallet as well as the surveys that they like assigned seating extra legroom.

And what's great this time around versus bags where we started selling and operating on the same day, and then you were ramping up from then; we've been selling the assigned seat and extra legroom since July. So when we hit the end of January, we'll effectively be at that run rate.

If I might, just on the initiatives and kind of the unit revenue trends, I just have a question on how we should think about as you head into 1Q. Just not assuming any kind of demand environment change just based on that initiative ramp-up and capacity plans. Like how should we think about the progression of year-over-year RASM? I'm not looking for a guide, but just trying to understand kind of the magnitude of how that moves from 4Q to 1Q?

Yes. So what we have talked about is a $1 billion number for the extra legroom and the seat assignments. And as you think about the other initiatives, by and large, by the time you get to 1Q, those will be approaching run rate. There's some of them that still have some ramp that occurs during the first half of the year. The loyalty program, for example, continues to ramp along with the benefits that come with seating. But I think you can think about it in those terms. We're not guiding 2026 yet, but that $1 billion number that we've talked about for next year and the ability for that to then grow to $1.5 billion as we move to the following year is still very much intact.

And if you look at Q1 capacity, that's already published. Now we're not saying it's final, but we know that when we published, we don't move it that much. It's a modest year-over-year increase. We will still be lapping our load factor initiatives that started really in August and beyond. So that will be—benefit should still carry on into Q1. And as I mentioned, the knife-edge improvement yield starting January 27 coming from seat fees and buy-up to extra higher-fare products, those, I think, 3 combinations of low capacity growth, load factor improvements going and still tracking and extra yield mix for an interesting Q1.

Well, just for the full year. I know we're going on a long time about this kind of a combination of what both are talking about. If you just take the midpoint of our guide that was reaffirmed for EBIT for the year, $600 million to $800 million, and then you stack on top of that the $1 billion that Tom referenced around the benefit of assigned seating and extra legroom, and then you stack on top of that the incremental value of a full annualized year of bag fees, which I think is roughly $700 million. And then we have obviously rewards improvements in a number of other initiatives that are all maturing—just gives you an idea of kind of the EBIT stack for the—just sort of the EBIT stack for the year, not trying—certainly, we're not guiding 2026 today, but it just gives you an idea of how to think basically about that EBIT stack.

Maybe if I could ask on—just if you could fill in the details on the corporate growth, how you're thinking about that filtering into your sales numbers and changes on that growth formula going forward given the—given you're selling forward into January, and you're seeing a knife edge in that yield premium coming through?

Yes. The corporate for the new year is extraordinarily low right now. So I wouldn't give a read into that. I will say, for Q3 corporate sales for future travel kind of excluding the government and inflect it up to plus 5% year-over-year. So we're seeing corporates improving. Our trip growth was down. As I said, we shrink trips where our competitors increased. So normally, since corporate is schedule-sensitive, not price sensitive, that should have led to kind of a reduction in share and we didn't necessarily see that. And so we see good solid trends with demand for Southwest business. But we expect, as you hint that in Q1 with assigned seating, that will unlock additional growth. Right now, through various different measures, we think our domestic managed business share is in the mid-teens, which is below our overall capacity share. And we think extra legroom assigned seating should give us tailwinds in our corporate share, and that is not to quantify the numbers that we just gave you.

So I suppose the definition of sell-side and sanity is asking the same question over and over and expecting a different response, but here it goes. Fourth quarter RASM guide, up 2% at the midpoint. But all of the tactical improvements in the bag fees, royalties, and flight credit noise, that's what, 8 points of benefit. So that suggests RASM at your core—so excluding the good stuff, is down mid-single digits. Why is this not the right way to think about it, that the core is deteriorating, but new initiatives are making up for it for now. But of course, that could prove challenging when you begin to anniversary those initiatives?

Yes, I don't know where you're getting the 8, Jamie. I apologize not following your math. You did mention the flight credits. The way the flight credit breakage works is that when customers cancel flight or it drops to a residual travel fund than those break prospectively. So the breakage rate changing is not something that you kind of will see changing until next year. So we expect 2026 to have—to show breakage benefits from the change in policies. So that one is coming. But the bag fees, obviously, are a, let's call it, a 3-point benefit year-over-year. Sequential, it's less than one because most of the policy was already in place for Q3. We do have on a year-over-year basis, if you're doing that our stages engage is growing year-over-year, whereas our competitors, that's going down as they restore regional. So that's about a 2-point headwind for RASM, if you did normal stage length adjusting. So I'm just not getting your 8—kind of walk us on it, maybe we can answer it.

Well, let me ask it differently. In the fourth quarter guide, how much—what is your initiative RASM then? And if we take—so whatever your answer is, maybe it's plus 3, maybe plus 11. I mean it's not going to be. But whatever the initiative-related RASM contribution is, shouldn't we think of the difference relative to the 2% midpoint as the core and is that deteriorating?

I think if we look at—I'm not sure maybe Tom can help with the initiative stuff. But if you look at other domestic main cabin, which is clearly not their strongest, our—you look at us as a proxy for a pure-play domestic main cabin, we see sequential improvement and theirs doesn't necessarily imply that either. And we see—as far as the core, if you look at our core customers, as we mentioned, we see our credit card applications have accelerated with the new products and the new features. We're seeing Rapid Reward sign-ups accelerate and we're seeing the kind of our road warrior travel also improve. So our core customers are responding back. Our brand—our Net Promoter Scores from our customers did dip post your conference and kind of went to the bottom in June and now have returned to where they were pre-year conferences. So all the kind of tail, tail signs on the micro level show our customers increasingly engage, increasingly using Southwest Airlines, whether it's a credit card or are traveling with us. So we see good trends in the core.

And maybe what I'd add there, Jamie, as well, is as far as where you draw the line between an initiative versus the base business is not always a clear line. We knew as we announced actually at your conference several of these initiatives that there would be an offset. And so as we guided these things, we guided them and we gave estimates for some of them, we guided those or gave those estimates as a net. And so it's not always a clear line on where you drop between base business or the initiatives.

Yes, I think that—it's just—it's more choice rather than intended to imply some kind of strategy change or change the way we think about cities. We have—depending on how you count them, we have roughly 15 to 17 what we call mega cities and they do some things that traditional hubs do. They have what we call intentional connections or banking opportunities throughout the day, they are not full banks, but they also have a lot of non-banking banking of aircraft activity. And again, those additional connections are just to drive connectivity across the network. So I wouldn't confuse that word choice as any change in Southwest Airlines network strategy. Now back to the survey. Obviously, if we were to choose to go forward with lounges, and we've been talking about where do we go next strategically to continue to widen our offering for our customers to continue to widen our offering of things that they desire, particularly premium and then how do we do all that to impact the economics of the Rapid Rewards program and the co-brand card, we're looking at what would our customers want in a lounge, where would those lounges be located relative to where we have strong passenger strength and demand. So that's really what it was about. And we're hopeful to—and again, this work is not just thinking about it. There's active work in terms of developing the next strategy. And I'm hopeful to be able to lay parts of that out early in 2026.

I think, Bob, to put a point on that. If you—domestic RASM, if you index that to 2018, we're getting very close to our competitors here in Q3 and Q4 may close the gap. But what we have still a gap is the other revenue— is our credit card hasn't done as well as others in recent times. Credit cards, these days, you've probably seen from your own bank and from other newspapers, that it's driven by high-end, high-fee credit cards that come with lounge access. So our gap and RASM is turning into now more "other revenue" driven by high-end credit cards that is what drives us to look at it as well as the customer desires that Bob talked about.

Maybe just a quick first one on shareholder returns. Can you walk us through how you think about the guardrails to shareholder returns? You're within your 1 to 2.5x leverage target, 2.1x at the end of Q3. How much headroom do you want to leave yourself on the high end of that leverage target, given there's still some uncertainty out there? I do have one quick follow-up.

Yes. Thanks for the question, Catie. Yes, as we look at that, it is, I think, important to us that we do leave a little bit of headroom there, knowing that there's some uncertainty out there. And so as we look at that range of the 1 to 2 to 2.5, we continue to believe that keeps us squarely in the investment grade and strongly within investment grade. And then we've got the $3 billion plus $1.5 billion revolver liquidity target as well, which we were right on for the quarter. And so as we think of shareholder returns, it's about ensuring that we're staying within those guardrails. And then as we look at the variability that might be there within the guide that we leave room to stay within that under those different scenarios.

Okay. Great. And then I had to laugh at Jamie's cell site insanity, but I'm going to keep going on in the past, so forgive me. But I just—I think it just may be helpful to understand a little bit more as we think about next year and the initiative ramp this year. And so maybe just a question on the EBIT target rather than RASM super specifically. You reiterated your EBIT target from last quarter, but fuel is down a bit and capacity is a bit higher. Are you able to share the EBIT contribution from the initiatives that you already booked in the third quarter? And then what you're incorporating in the fourth quarter? And how much of that fourth quarter figure is already on the books?

Yes, I don't know that we'll go into that level of detail with it. I think Bob laid it out pretty well as far as the initiatives that we have this year and the increment that we expect to see next year.

Yes. I think you can think of the—the largest, of course, right now is bag fees and that sequential incremental improvement from third quarter to the fourth quarter's contribution is about one point or maybe a little bit less than one point. Obviously, as you get into 2026, all of the EBIT associated with assigned seating extra legroom is fully—there's nothing today. It's a fully 2026 value then wraps to $1.5 billion in 2027 as it matures. You've got some smaller things, as Andrew talked about, the Rapid Rewards optimization, flight credits, which that will come home as they break, which tends to be later. But yes, we'll lay all that out as we stack up the EBIT guide for 2026; we're just not ready to do that today.

And there's, of course, the continued cost savings as well. I think your question was a little more focused on the revenue-related initiatives, but we've got the cost initiative that will continue to ramp up and is also on track for next year.

And Tom, maybe I'll just follow up there. You guys did reiterate $4.3 billion, I think, in total initiatives next year, but you guys keep talking about the $1 billion from assigned seat and premium. I get that. So maybe can you talk to the totality of the $4.3 billion, is that still valid? And I want to keep it to one question, but I guess 2 parts here. Can you give us a better understanding of how the buyout process is working today in the fourth quarter? And then how that potentially changes from like a basic fare to plus fare just based on seat assignments and premium availability?

Thanks, Brandon. I'll start and then Andrew will take the second part of your question. The $4.3 billion is very much still intact. We've talked about $780-or-so million in cost savings. We've talked about $1 billion that would come from bags. We've talked about $1 billion that would come from extra legroom and seat assignments, which will start operating in January. We've got the earn and burn on the frequent flyer. We've got the amendments that we've made and the enhancements that we've made to the Chase program, all of these things stack together. And what's great is we're seeing these continue to be on track as we're ramping through this year and especially as we get into the fourth quarter and into the first quarter of next year, as you see these continue to ramp. So yes, very much still intact for the $4.3 billion.

And as far as the buyout process goes, right now, the buyout process is mostly about flexibility. Going from basic to choice, the primary differences or flexibility and Rapid Rewards accrual that kind of entice customers to buy up. The very highest kind of entry fares are no longer basic. So if you think about a $350 fare as an entry point for flight, that's not basic because it's a pretty high fare to be basic. And so all that to say that about 80% of our tickets were Wanna Get Away last year and a little bit less than 50% are buying basic. A portion of the remainder are people who have choices like a standalone, that's the first entry point for them. And then you have, as I mentioned, a mid-single-digit composition increase of those who voluntarily who presented with a low fare and can buy up for the additional features; those are a mid-single-digit increase right now. Now we go into next year with seat assignments, that is much bigger. The booking curve is such that people buy early or generally less elastic. As the booking growth goes along, you have more elastic demand at the end, it's also again inelastic. And so right now, we're seeing strong buy-up in fare products in the kind of Q1 period with seat assignments. We expect, as we get into the mid of the booking curve for Q1 that we have more and more seat-only sales that people add in as well. So that composition will mix a little bit. But given the different entry points customers have into it is all about giving choice as our fare product indicates and that's led to, as I said, a quite strong increase in yields this part of the booking curve.

Well, I think the other thing to note, I know we've said many, many times, is—there are so many transformational initiatives that are underway. And between what we laid out in September, a little more than a year ago, what we laid out in March, all of that stuff is complete. The only thing that is still to come home is the operation of assigned seats, but we're selling those, and that huge change has been really, really smooth. So number one, everything that we laid out as a contributing initiative is done. Second, they're done as in high-quality, ready to go and on time and is expected to or already showing signs that is contributing the value that was expected or in the case of bags even greater. So you've got initiatives on time, they'll start as planned, and they are in line right now to deliver the value that we expect as we have high confidence in both the—in both that total value of EBIT to be delivered through initiatives and then our EBIT guide in the fourth quarter of this year and for the full year and then our—the EBIT guide that we'll put in front of you in 2026. But the— I mean, the execution of all this has just been stellar.

I'm going to keep it to one, I think we're struggling a little bit with that request. So anyway, I assume some of these initiatives have a learning curve associated with them from a revenue management perspective. And I wonder if you have any anecdotes about early learnings or tweaks you have made since the early rollout? Maybe some of these items were disruptive initially but are settling down as we get more fully baked into the booking curve?

Certainly, I think Tom made a good contrast of bags and basic; it was kind of all at once because you started selling operating right away, whereas assigned seats, we have a long run-out to it. So we mentioned last time that we saw a customer reaction to back to basic, which affected the third quarter by one point. That since has been resolved, and that basically comes down to—you have a much wider set of price points. As an earlier question implied, the number of people who buying just your lowest entry point used to be so high and now it's a lot wider. And so you did see different reactions from customers in June and July as they've learned it; we saw that stabilize by mid-July, and the customers are kind of buying life normal, if you will, for that. For—so I consider all the revenue management stuff doing very well on that. And then for Q1, we have a long run up. And so the tweaks are small in nature as you're looking at who buys a seat only, who buys the buy-ups, tweaking those high-demand, low-demand flights. We have a long runway to do that. So we feel very comfortable about how that's going. Now there still is an overall ramp-up in that—in my prepared remarks, I told you that the '26 number, the '27 number, the difference is an implied ramp-up in and the value. So to the extent we go faster, obviously, the number gets bigger next year.

Yes. I think that's a really important point is that the—Andrew, I don't want to—sorry to just to say the same thing you just did, but I want to make sure everybody hears that, that the $1 billion contribution from assigned seat and extra legroom next year contemplates time to do exactly what you said, which is ramp up the value. Some of these things like seats are dynamically priced, learn, tweak, and so the $1 billion contemplates a ramp-up time versus we've got a guide for EBIT for that initiative and there's risk because there's going to be ramp-up. We've actually—that's contemplated in the value that we've given you.

I'm going to be compliant as well here and keep it to one. United gave a CASM-X algo last week over the midterm to help us think about all the moving pieces here as it relates to capacity and their investment here in the product and other areas here. So I realize you're still in your budgeting plan for next year, but any thoughts on how we should frame that, whether you want to describe that as your mid- to long-term algo versus what you've given, I guess, your guide on low single-digit capacity over the midterm. Just wanted to understand the moving pieces around that, and I think we can all do the math on the EBIT side and what that might mean for unit margins and things like RASM?

You're right that we're still working through the planning process for 2026. So at our next call, we'll have more detail on next year. What you've seen from us is strong cost performance quarter after quarter, a strong beat this last quarter with or without the incremental capacity that came from operating the 700 seats; it was broad-based. There's work that we're doing on small things and discretionary spending. There's things we're doing on large things around supply chain and optimizing our retirement plan and the component maintenance work that goes along with that, and the way we're looking at real estate and technology. So we're looking everywhere. And we've talked about being on track this year, next year, and to the $1 billion in 2027 for the cost savings initiatives that we have, and that will roll in, and again, we'll put that into the context of 2026 at our next call.

So when I think about the $1.8 billion of initiatives this year. The guide has $300 million of incremental EBIT. So call it, $1.5 billion gap. Like do you think we should contemplate something similar next year with a sizable gap between the initiatives and the actual EBIT? Or I mean, is there a reason to think the gap widens? Could the gap potentially go away? I guess you're not ready to give '26 guidance, but just at a high level, like how do you think about like that gap and how that develops into next year?

Yes, Scott, you're right. We're not ready to guide 2026. The gap is simply the macro and what happens to the macro inflection like we talked in Q2. And we were down sort of from where we thought the beginning of the year—we would be down roughly 6 points. We've seen, obviously, some of that come back. And it's—I think absent maybe the uncertainty of the shutdown impact, there would be more certainty that continued macroeconomic inflection would continue. You've heard some others say that macro inflect back is going to be completely back to pre—before the issues by the end of this year. You've heard others say close. You just don't know. And so I think that's really what the gap is. It is how much is the macro clawing back the gap from where we thought we would start to—where we thought we would be at when we started this year. We got down 6%. We've come back a material piece of that, but we're not all the way back.

The other piece of it too, Scott, as you think about the initiatives, what we've done is we have put everything into the initiative bucket that we're doing to counter what would be sort of typical increases in cost in the business. As we move into next year, we've talked a lot about moving more to an EPS guided range. Of course, everything nets into that number. We'll still talk about the initiatives and what they are and what they're doing. But as we guide, likely, we move more toward kind of an EPS range where everything is netted. And as we talk about these initiatives, hey, this particular cost savings initiative is kind of in a year where we're not so initiative heavy with the transformation that we have, those types of things just find their way into the sort of typical efficiencies that you're building into your budget as you're moving forward. And don't confuse my word typical of anything other than just talking about kind of standard budgeting practices. We're going to continue to be really focused on the efficiency coming out on the cost side.

So Andrew, I'd love to kind of narrow in on that comment around the knife-edge improvement in yields with bookings for the assigned seating in January. Can you get—is there a way to dimension it and to talk a little bit about how much of the schedule is sold at this point in time whether the sell-through rate is being affected by the higher yields? Or any additional commentary you can give us on what that knife-edge comment was would be great?

Yes. Well, I apologize in advance, I'm going to do my best not to because it's early—it's early in the curve and so this is our first time doing the assigned seats and stuff like that. So we have studied others. We've scoured for good industry data. We think we have good compares. We have—our models are trained on how we sell early burn stuff and upgrade boarding. So we think we have good context. And so I'm not going to give you the number because I don't know how long they'll persist in the booking curve. But when you do see a knife-edge, it's clearly a change in customer reaction. You really see knife edges. And when you do see a knife edge, something happens. In this case, we see a disproportionate customer reaction to the ability to buy an assigned seat or upgrade to a fair product that includes it. And so that gives us confidence that we will see a revenue-positive customer reaction as we go throughout the booking curve. It's just the amount being different than our business case is something where it's just too early for us to hit that.

Yes. And I'll just echo Andrew's sentiment. We're excited about the knife edge because it feels good to see the behaviors changing on the yield as well with the response to the assignments. The changes in people's behavior on the value proposition of fares are showing pretty well. So we are excited about the early indicators.

Yes. And I think that's really important to underscore— to underscore—or get it right and say customers respond positively when they see opportunity for assigned seating versus just something as a given. So yes, that is really positive signal.

I think it would be helpful to understand the dynamics of how the assigned seating—extra legroom seating roll-out worked this time relative to the bags, just in terms of any—was there a more gradual ramp with extra legroom seating that gives you a better sense in terms of bookings? What were the observations, given your on-going observation of your competitors as people introduced a lot of these initiatives together?

Yes. Certainly. I think the customer reactions are as kind of different, right? With bags, we had to manage all those things at once, and it was like one big bang, whereas assigned seating, we’ve had a long run-up to it. We’ve been seeing and also using a lot of industry comparatives. You could look back at what others have done, and it didn't give you a whole lot of comfort in terms of having metrics but it sure helps you begin to build confidence on the behavior of customers. Having a long lead time on assigned seating, I think, leads us to a more stable rollout. And, yes, we are allowing for that ramp-up time just based on how long we have before we have operationalized it across the fleet when it becomes broadly available. So we feel good about the rollout.

If you have any further questions, our communications group is standing by. Their contact information and along with today's news release are all available at swamedia.com.