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Southwest Airlines (LUV) Flies to 4-Year High on End of ‘Open Seating’ Era

We recently published 10 Big Names With Explosive Gains.  Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) was one of the top performers on Thursday.

Southwest Airlines soared to a new four-year high on Thursday, jumping 18.70 percent to close at $48.50 apiece, as investors welcomed the end of an open-seating era following the company’s official adoption of assigned seating.

At intra-day trading, the stock jumped to as high as $49.12 before paring gains to finish the session just up by 18.70 percent.

Photo by Soly Moses on Pexels

This followed the company’s earnings call, where it announced the start of an “assigned seating” era, ending 54 years of open seating arrangement—an initiative expected to bolster the company’s profit margins moving forward.

“Just yesterday (January 27), assigned extra legroom seating became operational, and Southwest expects earnings upside based on how booking behavior related to these initiatives unfolds,” it said.

Last year, Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE:LUV) saw its net income drop by 5.2 percent to $441 million from $465 million in 2024. Total operating revenues inched up by 2.1 percent to $28.06 billion from $27.48 billion year-on-year.

In the fourth quarter alone, net income jumped by 23.7 percent to $323 million from $261 million, while revenues grew by 7.4 percent to $7.4 billion from $6.9 billion.

“Southwest closed 2025 with strong momentum. Last year, we implemented the most ambitious transformation in company history, including bag fees, basic economy fares, assigned and extra legroom seating, Rapid Rewards program optimization, online distribution expansion, and free Wi-Fi for loyalty members. We also outperformed our cost reduction goals, strengthened operational reliability through new technology, and returned $2.9 billion to our shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. That foundation positions us well for long‑term success and sets the stage for significant earnings growth this year,” said President and CEO Bob Jordan.

While we acknowledge the risk and potential of LUV as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than LUV and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.

The $250 Trillion AI Hype is Real. A few years from now, you’ll probably wish you’d bought this stock.

When Jeff Bezos said that one breakthrough technology would shape Amazon’s destiny, even Wall Street’s biggest analysts were caught off guard.

Fast forward a year and Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy described generative AI as a “once-in-a-lifetime” technology that is already being used across Amazon to reinvent customer experiences.

At the 8th Future Investment Initiative conference, Elon Musk predicted that by 2040 there would be at least 10 billion humanoid robots, with each priced between $20,000 and $25,000.

Do the math. According to Musk, this technology could be worth $250 trillion by 2040.

Put another way, that’s roughly equal to:

  • 175 Teslas
  • 107 Amazons
  • 140 Metas
  • 84 Googles
  • 65 Microsofts
  • And 55 Nvidias

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It’s a leap so massive, it could reshape how businesses, governments, and consumers operate worldwide.

Even if that $250 trillion figure sounds ambitious, major firms like PwC and McKinsey still see AI unlocking multi-trillion-dollar potential.

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  • Bill Gates sees artificial intelligence as the “biggest technological advance in my lifetime,” more transformative than the internet or personal computer, capable of improving healthcare, education, and addressing climate change.
  • Larry Ellison — through Oracle, is spending billions on Nvidia chips and partnering with Cohere to embed generative AI across Oracle’s cloud and apps.
  • Warren Buffett — not known for tech hype — says this breakthrough could have a ‘hugely beneficial social impact.

When billionaires from Silicon Valley to Wall Street line up behind the same idea — you know it’s worth paying attention to.

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