Outgoing CEO Gary Kelly told CNBC's Squawk on the Street on Thursday that the airline's fleet won't be large enough to support its existing model in the upcoming years, let alone an expansion.
"We don't feel like we have enough airplanes for 2022 and 2023, and that's just doing what you know us to be famous for," Kelly told Jim Kramer, referring to the airline's low-cost domestic flying.
Southwest is already one of the top four largest US airlines by fleet size with nearly 700 aircraft in storage, according to Cirium data, and has around 80 more aircraft stored or parked.