The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) has just reported their statistics for 2009.

Here are a few of their statistics:

• The number of passengers was down 5.3%.
• The number of flights was down 6.6%.
• The #1 US airline was Southwest with over 101 million passengers.
• The #1 US airport was Atlanta with over 42 million passengers.
• Most airlines were down last year.  Southwest was steady, where JetBlue and SkyWest both grew by 2.5%.  However, Southwest has 5 times the number of passengers of JetBlue and SkyWest.

Here’s the question of the day:  With the industry down 5%, how did passenger leader Southwest produce industry bucking results?