By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – Southwest Airlines Co. added an upbeat note to a strong quarter for the airline industry by reporting a $112 million profit for spring and early summer.
The nation's biggest discount airline said Thursday that its adjusted earnings were 29 cents per share in the second quarter, enough to beat analysts' expectations.
Revenue rose 21 percent, helped by heavy traffic during the start of the summer vacation period.
Southwest is the last of the big six carriers to report second-quarter results. All except American Airlines made money thanks to higher fares and new fees on passengers.
Judge tosses Texas cities from sunshine act suit
A federal judge in West Texas has ruled that four Texas cities can't sue that state over its open meetings law.
In the nine-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Junell of Pecos concluded that the cities of Alpine, Pflugerville, Rockport and Wichita Falls can't sue Texas and Attorney General Greg Abbott to overturn the state law.
The cities and more than a dozen elected officials sued Abbott and the state last year. They argued that the Texas Open Meetings Act violates the officials' First Amendment rights to free speech by barring elected officials from deliberating in secret.
Filmmakers take aim at Perry
Democrat Bill White's campaign is encouraging Texas' artsy crowd to take aim at Republican Gov. Rick Perry.
White spokeswoman Katy Bacon said Thursday that a supporter of White is organizing a festival for independent filmmakers to show their videos made on behalf of his campaign. No date has been set yet for the Austin event.
The initiative came to public light when one of the filmmakers advertised on an actors' website for a Perry look-alike to be cast for low-budget "comic Webisodes." The actor also is supposed to have a "Steve Carrell like cluelessness."
Perry spokesman Mark Miner says White's campaign sinks lower every day. He says actors have to be paid to appear in White attack ads because no one else will do it
American flight makes emergency landing at DFW
An American Airlines flight from Newark, N.J., to Dallas made an emergency landing at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport after a warning light in the cockpit indicated the rear slide might have deployed.
The plane landed safely around 11:30 a.m. Thursday with fire trucks standing by as a precaution. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford says the flight crew looked through a peephole in the back of the plane and could not tell whether there was a problem.
Television images of the landing showed nothing unusual.
American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner says the problem appears to have been a malfunctioning indicator light. There were 138 passengers and five crew members aboard.