Southwest Airlines (WN, Dallas Love Field) could use tax savings, resulting from the proposed lower corporate tax in the United States, to order more aircraft, CEO Gary Kelly said at an industry meeting in New York last week.

"It puts us in a position to think about growing faster. Even if we decided we don’t want to grow faster, it gives us an opportunity to begin to modernise our fleet," Kelly was quoted by Bloomberg.

He added that B737 MAXs are the most likely type to be acquired but refused to discuss the potential size of the order. As of September 30, 2017, Southwest has 170 B737-8s and thirty B737-7s on order from Boeing (BOE, Washington National) with options for a further 195 MAX 8s. Thus far, twelve MAX 8s have been delivered.

Tax reform promoted by the Trump administration includes a provision to cut the basic corporate tax rate from the current 35% to 21%. Southwest Airlines, which reported USD20.4 billion in revenue in 2016, stands to gain hundreds of millions of dollars should the bill be signed into law. In 2016, the LCC paid USD1.3 billion in taxes for net income according to its annual report.