LUV vs ARCC Comparison

Southwest Airlines is the largest domestic air carrier in the United States by passengers boarded. Southwest operates nearly 800 aircraft in an all-Boeing 737 fleet. Despite offering some longer routes and a few perks for business travelers, the airline predominantly specializes in short-haul, leisure flights operated in a single, open-seating cabin configuration in a point-to-point network. In late 2025, Southwest will modify its cabins to offer some rows with extra legroom and will update its ticketing process and merchandising to offer assigned seats and more fare categories, including a basic economy class that will more directly compete with other airlines' offerings and appear for the first time in travel aggregators' search results.

Ares Capital Corp is a United States-based closed-ended specialty finance company. Its investment objective is to generate both current income and capital appreciation through debt and equity investments. The company focuses on investing primarily in first lien senior secured loans (including unitranche loans, which are loans that combine both senior and subordinated debt, generally in a first lien position) and second lien senior secured loans. In addition to senior secured loans, the company also invests in subordinated loans and preferred equity, it also makes common equity investments.