Southwest may become world's largest airline

Southwest Airlines is on a way to displace American Airlines this year as the world's largest airline, in terms of total passengers carried. According to official figures released last week, the domestic-only low cost carrier already surpassed American's combined domestic and international traffic during the first five months of this year. The statistics revealed that Southwest carried 40.3 million passengers on domestic routes between January and May, which is 4.2% increase on the same period in 2006. American, which also operates the world’s largest fleet, carried 40 million passengers during the January-May period, a decrease with 1.8 percent from last year's levels.

Southwest currently flies to 63 destinations throughout the United States and it's adding its 64th route on August 26, 2007 when it starts service to San Francisco, California.