Southwest Chief Executive Statement.

Southwest Airlines said it earned $205 million in the third quarter as the Dallas-based carrier continued to have fuller planes in the air.

Revenues grew 17.7 percent to $3.19 billion compared to $2.66 billion in the same period last year. The profits compared to a third-quarter 2009 loss of $16 million.

Our industry-leading domestic revenue performance this year demonstrates continued strong customer response to our revenue management and schedule optimization efforts, producing record monthly load factors for fourteen of the last fifteen months, said Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly in a statement.

Kelly added that the carrier's outlook for October is "excellent" and that it's seeing positive traffic and revenue trends into the fourth quarter which is typically a slower travel season until the holidays.

Excluding one-time accounting items, Southwest reported a third-quarter income of $195 million, or 26 cents per share, beating Wall Street analysts' expectations of 25 cents a share.

Last month, Southwest announced it was buying AirTran Airways in a $1.4 billion deal. The airline said that it expects to incur between $300 million and $500 million in one-time acquisition costs but should get more than $400 million in annual synergies by 2013.