Southwest Rapid Rewards - City of Houston will agrees with WN international plans

http://blog.chron.com/houstonpolitics/2012/05/agreement-with-southwest-to-be-announced-tomorrow/

Houston Mayor Annise Parker is planning to announce Wednesday morning that the city and Southwest Airlines have come to an agreement on how to finance a $100 million expansion of Hobby Airport to accommodate international flights, according to a City Hall source.

They will have a press conference tomorrow morning at 9am and WN will plans to start international service expansion from Hobby.

Excellent news. Let's hope it doesn't get hung up at the Federal level.

Am I to assume international means Mexico, latin America and the Carribbean?

Am I to assume international means Mexico, latin America and the Carribbean?

International means any place you fly to that requires a passport and immigration. :D

Great news for everyone except United airlines.

This is awesome, I always love to see Southwest expanding ^

Write to Hobby and tell them not to make the airport name too long. Don't add "international". Joke airports use that term, like in Lubbock, TX. Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle, LaGuardia, Singapore/Changi are not called "international".

http://www.fly2houston.com/CustomerFeedback

Look at these mouthfuls:
Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport
Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport

They better not name it the:
Mickey Leland Kathryn Whitmire Bill White William P. Hobby Houston International Airport

This is awesome, I always love to see Southwest expanding ^

I agree as well. Let's wait and see if the city of Houston will approved it. They will start construction 5 more new international gates and built new CBP facility.

Officially approved minutes ago.

16 for, 1 against



http://blog.chron.com/houstonpolitics/2012/05/hobby-expansion-approved-international-flights-planned-for-2015/

Officially approved minutes ago.

16 for, 1 against



http://blog.chron.com/houstonpolitics/2012/05/hobby-expansion-approved-international-flights-planned-for-2015/

Yup, sure does. Congratulations to WN & City of Houston. Best of luck to WN and they will start construction very soon.

hmm, LUV crowd doesn't seem to verbose about this one. It is huge on a.net and UA forums.

What will be the WN post merge int'l "hubs"? ATL, LAX, FLL, HOU?

But as a courtesy Texas does not require passports from people coming in from the lesser 49.:D

International means any place you fly to that requires a passport and immigration. :D

Five gates is a lot of potential!

hmm, LUV crowd doesn't seem to verbose about this one. It is huge on a.net and UA forums

It is huge for the UA guys maybe wanting an alternative? Any of WN's aircraft flying over land could reach Mexico, Central America and with the 700's parts of South America. If you add rafts or use the ETOPS 800's just WOW!

I think it's interesting that the majority opinion here (UAL forum), on airliners, and the local Houston forums, TV, and all the way to my Facebook friends is that UAL can go pound sand for acting how they are even from people who don't like or fly Southwest!

UAL is totally destroying all the home town support that Continental had here over the years and that feeling has now gone past just the flyertalk crowd and on to the general population.

UAL is totally destroying all the home town support that Continental had here over the years

Not unlike ATL's "home town support" for FL being destroyed.

UAs memo to employees says they will stage "a 10 percent reduction in planned IAH capacity beginning with the fall 2012 schedule change." They plan to kill the 787 non-stop IAH to Auckland, New Zealand, as it was "heavily dependent on connecting traffic through IAH." They announced 1,300 job losses will begin this fall.

Perhaps this is a scare tactic by UA to sway the feds. I support the Hobby expansion. But I still don't get why the Memorandum of Understanding stipulates the Latin American routes are to be flown by AirTran. Why can't SWA figure out, at long last, how to stage Southwest planes across the water?

United Letter to Employees (http://www.click2houston.com/news/United-letter-to-employees-on-international-flights-from-Hobby/-/1735978/14327280/-/k6855jz/-/index.html)

United Preps For 1,300 Job Cuts (http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2012/05/united-preps-for-1300-job-cuts-after.html)

Considering that international flights wouldn't begin until 2015 I hope that it's more of a paperwork thing. That is, at the moment only AirTran can do it so that's what they had to put on the papers.

Not unlike ATL's "home town support" for FL being destroyed.Kind of but not really. In Houston Continental was the number one airline and people enjoyed flying them, Continental sponsored everything, everybody knows somebody who works for them, and those employees generally always spoke positively about them while Southwest was a distant but solid second. That is to say, they were entrenched to the point that they could do or say just about anything and people would still stand behind them. Now I admit that I don't live in Atlanta, but I think you'd agree that Delta is the big dog with AirTran being the distant but solid second.

Now I admit that I don't live in Atlanta, but I think you'd agree that Delta is the big dog with AirTran being the distant but solid second.

Sure, I would agree.

But there is (or was) home town pride in having a well-run carrier's operational base here, topping performance surveys and growing its route system with product innovations. They also were pretty invested in ATL & MKE community projects and outreach.

I hope you're right about the 2015 Hobby operation. By 2015, all FL's 717's could be gone and cannibalizing AirTran's remaining fleet to run Latin American routes out of HOU decimates the "wholly owned subsidiary."

I think it's interesting that the majority opinion here (UAL forum), on airliners, and the local Houston forums, TV, and all the way to my Facebook friends is that UAL can go pound sand for acting how they are even from people who don't like or fly Southwest!

UAL is totally destroying all the home town support that Continental had here over the years and that feeling has now gone past just the flyertalk crowd and on to the general population.

And you were expecting something else?