Southwest Airlines Is Considering Using Tax Windfall to Order New Planes

A Southwest Airlines Co. Boeing Co. 737 aircraft.

Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

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Southwest Airlines Co. will consider using cash from a federal tax overhaul to buy new aircraft for expanding or refreshing its fleet.

“It puts us in a position to think about growing faster,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said before addressing an aviation-industry group in New York on Thursday. Legislation being hammered out in Congress could result in “hundreds of millions of dollars” for Southwest through a lower corporate tax rate.