Southwest Airlines saw a “nice acceleration” in managed business revenues, according to Bob Jordan, CEO, speaking on a first quarter earnings call. He said those revenues were up 25% year over year. Ryan Green, chief commercial officer, said the increase was driven by a double-digit increase in unique customers traveling under a managed business contract, “so that just means we’re penetrating deeper into accounts.”

Green said the corporate demand increase was “widespread,” adding that of the airline’s top 15 industries, 11 had double-digit growth year over year.

Southwest is “growing the number of companies under accounts, and we continue to pick up market share there,” Green said, adding, “We expect the performance to continue and to accelerate the sequential performance in the second quarter to be better than the first.”

However, that was the good news in an otherwise underwhelming report. Southwest had a first quarter net loss of $231 million, some of which Jordan attributed to Boeing’s struggles. “We are continuing efforts to optimize the network and reduce the number of markets in development that aren’t performing to more historic levels,” Jordan said. The carrier also has “essentially frozen” and stopped all hiring except for a limited number of critical positions. “I am disappointed with our first-quarter performance,” said Jordan.

Executives also said that on Aug. 4, the carrier will reduce service at Chicago O’Hare and Atlanta; and end service at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport as well as Syracuse, N.Y., Bellingham, Wash., and Cozumel, Mexico. On the same day, it will reduce capacity in Atlanta and Chicago. Jordan said the airport reductions were geared to cost control and capacity adjustments.

Tammy Romo, CFO, said that at the beginning of the quarter, the airline expected to receive 79 of 85 Boeing aircraft this year, but that expected number is now only 20.

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