As expected, both Southwest Airlines and American Airlines reported nice second quarter profits today, with Southwest posting a record-setting net profit of $333 million, or 40 cents a share, more than double the $144 million, or 18 cents a share, the company reported for the same period last year.

Excluding special items, the Dallas-based company posted earnings of 33 cents a share.

This still blew away the analysts’ pre-announcement consensus of 26 cents a share.

As for American, well, they can thank Southwest for continuing to raise fares throughout the second quarter as reduced capacity and more pricing power were clearly the big factors at work here.

American reported a net profit of $291 million or $1.14 a share, up from $58 million, or 30 cents a share in 2005.

These numbers were right on the money in terms of analysts’ forecasts.