Five Takeaways From Q2 Data

Oct 14, 2025

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The Department of Transportation (DOT) DB1B data is out for Q2, meaning we can take a look at revenue trends on a route level for the domestic market. This is always overwhelming for me since there are so many different things to look at. At last check, I had 15 different tabs in my spreadsheet, and as always, I’ve found some fun stuff. So instead of focusing on one trend, I thought I’d pull out five nuggets to share here.

But first, a couple definitions:

Available Seat Mile (ASM): The total number of miles each seat flew, all added together
Revenue Passenger Mile (RPM): The total number of miles flown by a seat when occupied, all added together
Load Factor: RPMs/ASMs to find the total percent of seat miles that were filled
Yield: Passenger revenue divided by RPMs (helps think about fare trends)
PRASM: Passenger revenue divided by ASMs (like yield but impacted by load factor, so it’s a broader view)
SLA: Stage-length adjusted since shorter flights tend to mean higher yield and PRASM, so we adjust in this case to 1,000 miles on average to compare apples to apples

#1 – Las Vegas is Awful, But Not as Awful If You’re Southwest

YoY % Chg in Las Vegas

^{DB1B/T100 Data via Cirium, carriers shown by market size from left to right}

Just look at this carnage in Vegas. Only one airline saw positive trends at all, and that was Frontier. But to be fair, Frontier saw its seats drop, so that always helps. (This was also one of Frontier’s worst-performing markets, as you’ll see shortly.) Spirit, on the other hand, saw its seats plunge, but it still saw fares fall off an absolute cliff.

It wasn’t just fares though. Load factors tanked across the board. Overall, Vegas saw loads drop from 85.7 percent in Q2 2024 to 80.8 percent this year.

It’s hard to find much of a bright spot here outside of Frontier, but Southwest would be it. The city’s largest airline saw fares drop just under 3 percent which was better than anyone else. And that came on a 5.8 percent increase in seats. I’d call that good news.

#2 – Frontier Did Better Everywhere

Frontier YoY % Chg for Top 15 Markets

^{DB1B/T100 Data via Cirium, carriers shown by market size from left to right}

Frontier has struggled along with everyone else in the ULCC space, but Q2 had a lot of positive trends for the airline. Remember how I said it looked better in Vegas than everyone else? That was one of the airline’s worst markets.

Denver had particularly good unit revenue performance while fares soared elsewhere. Now, keep in mind that this comes off a low base. But any progress is good for the airline.

#3 – JetBlue is Doing Just Fine in Fort Lauderdale

FLL SLA PRASM By Quarter

^{DB1B/T100 Data via Cirium}

With Spirit on the ropes, the Fort Lauderdale market is one to watch. Spirit has already been in a tough spot, but it saw a small rebound in unit revenue trends. JetBlue, however? It was up. Everyone else that matters? They were down. Of course, it helps that everyone else had seats climb while both Spirit and JetBlue were down. But JetBlue was down only 9 percent on seats while Spirit was down 19 percent.

Keep in mind, this isn’t the whole story. This is just domestic, and the international market matters a lot here. Either way, with JetBlue’s already announced growth coming to FLL, it looks poised to pounce.

#4 – Southwest is Making Progress in Hawaiʻi

Southwest Unit Revenue for Hawaiʻi by Quarter

^{DB1B/T100 Data via Cirium}

To say that Hawaiʻi has been a struggle for Southwest is probably an understatement, but look at Q2. Things are looking up.

Interisland seats dropped by about 15 percent from Q1 to Q2, and the fare even dipped ever-so-slightly. But loads soared from 48 percent to 60 percent (they were at 47 percent in Q2 2024), and that meant the unit revenue jumped by nearly 25 percent vs Q1 and more than 35 percent vs the previous year.

But don’t think this is just a matter of cutting capacity. For flights to the mainland, seats were up more than 6 percent vs Q1, but unit revenue was also up nearly 25 percent vs Q1 and 16 percent versus last year.

#5 – Breeze is Looking Even Better

Breeze Yield and Unit Revenue by Market Type for Q2 2025

^{DB1B/T100 Data via Cirium, dark blue shows Q2 2024 for comparison}

You’ll remember that Breeze’s numbers in Q2 on the revenue side were looking pretty good. But if you think that’s good, take a look at this broken down by existing and new markets. I looked at markets that operated in Q2 2025 that also operated in Q2 2024 (Existing) and those that didn’t operate in Q2 2024 (New).

The difference in yield is one thing, but it’s the unit revenue that really stands out since the load factors on existing markets in 2025 were 10 points higher than new ones. All-in, the SLA PRASM was 6.9 cents, but existing markets were 7 percent higher than that at 7.4 cents. Keep in mind that existing markets saw more than 20 percent seat growth vs last year, so if Breeze would just slow down, its numbers would look significantly better. And they’re already not looking terrible compared to where they were.

Brett

15 responses to “Five Takeaways From Q2 Data”

Tim Dunn

Oct 14, 2025 at 5:07 am

Southwest’s turnaround in Hawaii is a story of how they were so dead set on a strategy and couldn’t or wouldn’t see how it needed to be changed.

Redeyes have helped Hawaii tremendously, first by creating connections across the US and then from Hawaii to the mainland; they counted on the MAX 7s to be their intra-Hawaii aircraft but didn’t adjust capacity when it became apparent they would have to use -8 size aircraft.

Hawaii wasn’t all that ailed them but they are finally seeing benefit from addressing a problem that should have been corrected years ago

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1. Bill from DC
  
  Oct 14, 2025 at 5:43 am
  
  That’s a great point on the a/c size but can they actually lower capacity to a substantial degree? I thought most of the interisland came from tags to/from the mainland and not from a dedicated interisland fleet.
  
  Reply
  1. Tim Dunn
    
    Oct 14, 2025 at 6:41 am
    
    it is primarily frequency related but the -700s don’t fly to Hawaii (I could be wrong) so WN is using their larger aircraft for interstate Hawaii flights – far more seats than HA.
    
    Reply
    1. GS
      
      Oct 14, 2025 at 7:02 am
      
      Despite the big step up in performance, inter-island LFs for Southwest are still horrid. The MAX7 could help, but would they want to fly that bird to Hawaii to begin with and sacrifice CASM? The MAX8 is better suited for mainland-HI flying. I doubt they want a dedicated MAX7 fleet for inter-island, half the reason why they’re doing it is to try to juice utilization with low opportunity cost flying.
      
      At the end of the day, it’s probably too much capacity in that market, especially on 737s- just depends if Southwest can get the losses to be a tolerable level or if they eventually cut it out.
      
      Very curious how Hawaiian approaches 717 replacement. They could rotate A321s and 737s inter-island but those are large birds (Alaska mostly flies MAX9 to the islands) so you’d have to sacrifice frequency. The AvGeek in me wants to see the return of the Horizon Q400 fleet painted in Pualani livery
      
      Reply
      1. Kevin
        
        Oct 14, 2025 at 7:53 am
        
        We should be so lucky!
        
        Reply
      2. JT8D
        
        Oct 14, 2025 at 9:29 am
        
        No one flies interisland the way it should be.
        
        If you want to drive costs down, you need to fly it with an aircraft that can be loaded front and rear, because with short stage lengths its all about getting people on/off the aircraft fast. The 717s don’t have that capability (the ventral stairs don’t exist).
        
        Maybe the island attitude simply won’t stand for this, but you should be seeking to emulate the 10-minute turnaround era of Southwest. 10 minutes is probably too optimistic, but everything needs to be ruthlessly optimized for the turnaround. I’d be thinking about measures like a dedicated HNL facility where people are pre-scanned into sterile rooms so when an aircraft is ready for boarding, there’s no screwing around.
        
        Another issue for 717 replacement is that I bet that flying is reserved for mainline pilots. For all we know, the right aircraft on its merits is the E175 – but that would be a big fricking problem to fly on those routes.
        
        I always thought that if Mesa was at all competent it would have gone after Hawaiian in the interisland with E170s – very close to the 717 in experience, but with potentially a lot lower cost (in pilots and shorter turnarounds, if you do it right). But (e)Go was really just a desperate attempt to find something to do with unemployed 50-seat RJs.
        
        Reply
        
        Chapter12
        
        Oct 14, 2025 at 10:30 am
        
        In other words…bring back Aloha!
Bill from DC

Oct 14, 2025 at 5:40 am

I wonder how many of the WN interisland seats are connecting passengers from the mainland vs local travel amongst the islands.

I assume WN entered the interisland market primarily if not solely for the former; however, selling seats to locals definitely helps.

Reply
1. Chapter12
  
  Oct 14, 2025 at 10:33 am
  
  According to the DB1B for 2Q25, only 27% of WN’s interisland pax are connecting onward (to the mainland). They are primarily local.
  
  Reply
Paper Boarding Pass

Oct 14, 2025 at 6:46 am

Vegas is considered a leisure/discretion destination. TV reports indicate casino attendance is easing. Considering an anticipated mild recession, there’s more pain to come at LAS; your 3Q analysis could be a blood bath. Southwest may want to ease off via down gauging or number of assigned airframes while maintaining market leadership.

As for FLL, B6 has no choice but to defend its turf as the dominate carrier and is its 3rd largest. Like LAS, FLL is leisure/discretion focused (vacation, cruise ship terminal, etc), but it has a large retiree contingent who will fly as long as the Social Security and dividend checks keep coming. B6 is north/south bias at FLL; it needs to fill in a few more dots in the midwest. A lounge in T3 or T4 and domestic 1st class would enhance the perceived value of the TrueBlue Barclays program and draw in higher yield business PAX. Eventually, it needs to join the Star Alliance via UA endorsement.

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1. CraigTPA
  
  Oct 14, 2025 at 7:20 am
  
  Southwest’s most recent additions at LAS – the three Mexican cities, Santa Rosa, Anchorage – have appeared to be as much or more for connections as for O&D (well, maybe not ANC), which makes more sense given the drop in LAS tourism. LAS is a good location to be WN’s main west coast hub, and they seem to be looking to the future – especially if it turns out to be a un-Spirited future – and willing to take some “meh” performance in the meantime.
  
  And all those new adds are in mid-2026, so they can cut them back if the forward bookings run below projections.
  
  There are probably a few cities in the middle of the country JetBlue needs to add, but several of the more obvious ones are UA hubs and – presuming Blue Sky gets all the regulatory OKs – they won’t add those. They can’t coordinate, but they can look at the UA map and say “nope, not gonna fly FLL-IAH…”
  
  Reply
2. JT8D
  
  Oct 14, 2025 at 9:40 am
  
  Vegas appears to have priced itself out. There are a lot of people complaining about how expensive it is. With the post-Covid travel bubble over, and with a palatial absence of international travelers, it would not be surprising to see Vegas have some kind of correction.
  
  There’s is little that is intrinsically desirable about Vegas. It used to be one of the few places where you can gamble, but now it’s just a fancy place where you can gamble. It’s not like it’s in a particularly beautiful part of the country, or its weather is drop-dead gorgeous or there are wonderful beaches.
  
  It lives and dies on providing value for money, however people see that. Right now it seems to be on the wrong side of that equation.
  
  I think the biggest indicator in that graph is Allegiant. It flies from the heartland to Vegas – Allegiant customers are from places like Missoula or Fargo or Grand Island. That’s massive drop. Either the people running Allegiant really screwed the pooch, or it’s telling you that people in the heartland are pretty turned off by Vegas at the moment. If that’s correct, the people running the casinos should be concerned.
  
  Reply
Jason

Oct 14, 2025 at 7:03 am

WN inter island increase in capacity was helped by the AS/HA merger since they raised fares and changed their rewards offerings it actually made WN product more appealing to the Local community.
In addition the locals have some post merger resentment because a Mainland airline has swallowed up their Local Airlines and they are moving all the 787 away from Hawaii eliminating the HNL
Promises of a world wide Hub to some extent. So it’s taken away some of the stigma from WN being the invasive Mainland threat. Now WN seen as a Hero since they brought new Jobs to Hawaii while AlaskaAir shifted Hawaiian Jobs to Seattle.
I also agree WN adding Red eyes allows for more flexibility since you no longer have to get up at 5am in Hawaii to catch a WN mainland flight home. You can easily see the Shift in traffic the morning originator to HNL from the other islands are less crowded and now the midday and afternoon flights are packed.
I still think WN during Peak Season should be running Reverse Red Eyes(Early Birds) from LAS and PHX to Hawaii. 01:35-05:00 on Thursday through Sunday and a 2nd Red Eye back to LAS & PHX This would allow for more connectivity from the entire network.
It would offer up those on the Midwest and eastern half of the WN network to get in a full day of work and fly basically all night to their Hawaii vacation.

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Fan of Breeze

Oct 14, 2025 at 9:10 am

I’m telling yall – Breeze has a great product (especially premium classes) and thus shouldn’t be considered a ULCC. I suspect that in markets where they’re flying point-to-point, they’re more taking market share from connecting traffic on the big 3 (i.e. folks willing to pay more) rather than inducing demand with ultra low fares (like Allegiant, Avelo, etc.).

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JT8D

Oct 14, 2025 at 9:44 am

Least surprising thing was Frontier. The main substitute for Frontier is Spirit and they’re in deep doo doo.

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