Southwest Airlines (WN, Dallas Love Field) is mulling placing a large new order for "more than a handful" Boeing B737 MAX Family aircraft to both replace the ageing aircraft and grow its fleet as it benefits from tax cuts and growing demand for travel, Bloomberg has reported.

"I don’t expect that we would have access to any more deliveries this year, so it probably would begin no earlier than next year. With the extra capital, we are working on ways to better serve our customers and the first place we want to look is to continue to modernize our fleet," CEO Gary Kelly has said.

While Kelly has not specified the size of the potential order nor the split between B737 MAX variants, it has reaffirmed that the LCC is looking at some 500 new aircraft over the next couple years.

The American LCC is the world's largest operator of B737 aircraft. In 2017, the carrier became the launch customer for the B737-8 type. So far, the airline has taken delivery of fourteen units of the type. According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Southwest Airlines also operates a total of 513 B737-700s and 190 B737-800s.

The carrier also has unfilled orders for 196 B737 MAX 8s and thirty B737-7s, as well as its four last B737-800s, placed directly with the manufacturer. In January, the LCC postponed the deliveries of the twenty-three smallest MAXes, for which it is the world's largest announced customer, until 2023-2024.