Investing.com – Southwest Airlines (NYSE:) stock fell 1.4% on Thursday after the company reported a loss in the third quarter and said it expects the fourth to be no different.

The company expects the current quarter’s capacity as well as January to March’s to stay below comparable quarters in years before the pandemic.

The carrier’s operations were disrupted for at least five days in the second week of this month. The airline was hit the hardest by bad weather, lack of staff and traffic-related problems. Around 2,000 Southwest flights were cancelled during that time.

The hit to the airline’s October revenue could be the tune of $75 million because of operational costs and customer refunds, the airline said. Another $40 million hit to the month’s revenue is expected due to the lingering effects of the pandemic.

“We have reined in our capacity plans to adjust to the current staffing environment . . Chief Executive Gary Kelly declared:

He said that, except for the higher fuel prices in fourth quarter 2021, overall results were trending more positive than those of third quarter 2021.

According to the company, cost increases are mainly due to inflation of labor costs and airport prices. Incentives for vaccination are also increasing costs.

The result is that overall costs will rise by between 8 and 12% from the 2019-quarter level.

Excluding all items, Dallas’ airline lost $135m less than the $1.17billion it earned in the same quarter last year. While $4.7B in total operating revenue was 161% greater than the 2020-quarter, it still fell 17% from the 2019.

American Airlines (NASDAQ 🙂 suffered a $341 million net loss in its third quarter despite operating revenues of $8.97billion.

United Airlines’ adjusted loss (NASDAQ:) totaled $329 Million and its operating revenue was $7.75 Billion.