MikeyZBT

Any thoughts, ideas, or rumors on when Southwest will start flying into/out of Atlanta? Obviously, they will when they officially merge with AirTran, but before that I am sure they'll "ease" in, right?

Any ideas? Also, any ideas on routes?

I'd love to see ATL-SAN start up to compete with Delta and bring Delta's fares back down to earth on this route that they currently have a monopoly on...

alggag

Considering that they now own empty gates at ATL (whatever FL has as spares), I would expect WN to move in right away. With the schedule extension scheduled for tomorrow, perhaps WN will announce some bare bones ATL service?

Heck, if there are spare FL gates available I think they'd be stupid not to move in just to get something going.

MikeyZBT

Agreed. It's gonna take some time to get people in Atlanta (very used to FL and DL, and having business class/first class) to start using WN...

N830MH

I don't see it happening anytime soon. The rumors is false. You have wait and see. Whether WN will decide start service to ATL in a distant the future. WN will not come into ATL anytime soon.

gogreyhound

In a sense, WN already is in ATL. I know it will take at least year or more to merge the certificates, but a WN man is now in charge of FL and will no doubt take directions from DAL. CO and UA are still technically separate, but schedules, fares and plane deployments are already set by one higher authority and top management makes this point on every conference call and at every Wall Street show. So if GK and company like ATL-SAN, they will move whenever they want.

Nevada1K

WN has to train AirTran employees, merge or migrate reservations systems (if they're on different computer/software platforms) and do 1,001 other things related to the merger if they want to make it as seemless as possible to the end user (passenger) before they can put up the logo.

While I would expect WN to be flying the SWA banner at ATL as soon as possible, there are oodles of logistics to be taken care of. It doesn't happen overnight and they can't just "drop in" some WN flights at unused AirTran gates.

rumorboy

SWA's 40th birthday is next month. Stay tuned....

rumorboy

You don't need Airtran employees/Airtran reservation system/ to have SWA flights in ATL. As my previous post has said, SWA's 40th birthday is next month. Stay tuned....

alggag

It would also violate WN's contracts to have FL personnel handling the flights. Up to this point the only thing keeping WN out of ATL was a lack of gates and they officially removed that obstacle a few weeks ago when the merger was approved. Assuming that there is enough slack in FL's gates (which are now WN's gates in the grand scheme) there's really nothing stopping WN from moving in and setting up their own operation that is otherwise independent from FL.

That said, my prediction for the 40th is the unveiling of DENVER ONE! (Yes, that's DENVER ONE, not COLORADO ONE).

LoneStarMike

Here's my prediction, which I think will be announced on Southwest's 40th birthday.

Southwest will be in Atlanta sometime in November (before Thanksgiving)

When I looked at AirTran's schedules a few days ago, their flights were bookable through December 4th. However, you couldn't book a ticket from DFW-ATL after November 21, so that appears to be the last day for AirTran at DFW, unless they end it earlier.

I don't think we'll ever see an AirTran branded flight at Love Field. People flying WN out of Love Field are already used to WN, a carrier with no biz class, no assigned seating, and no bag fees. So why bring in a second airline-brand with biz class and assigned seating, that does charge for bag fees (and would only serve select destinations) and then take it away again after full integration?

It would be like telling some of your most loyal customers at your home airport - "Hey Dallas travelers, as you know, we bought AirTran, and we've already said we're going to do away with their business class and assigned seating, but..... just look what it could have been like if we'd gone the other way. Ooooh...isn't that biz class nice? Mmmmm....don't you just LUV that assigned seating?"

SLAM! OK it's gone now! Ha Ha! (We were just messing with you.)"

I just don't see WN doing things that way. One thing people like about WN is that they're consistent. Bringing AirTran into Love Field just screams "inconsistent!" I can understand leaving the AirTran brand in the cities they currently serve, and slowly phasing them out, but the cities that are currently only served by WN should stay that way, IMHO. My guess is that we'll never see AirTran branded flights at any city currently served by WN, but not FL.

But obviously, WN will want to connect DAL to ATL, so they'll have to do so through one or more of the current WN cities within the perimeter. And if they do establish a presence in ATL by November, then their birthday (June 18) would be about the time they'd want to announce it - 5 months ahead of time.

I have ideas on some (not all) possible routes, but I'll put those in a separate post later.

LoneStarMike

If it were possible, a nonstop DAL-ATL flight would be 721 miles, but of course, WN will have to stop in another city within the perimeter on the way to ATL. Of all possible cities, JAN & BHM are the two cities between DAL & ATL that are the most "on-the-way." DAL-BHM-ATL is 721 miles (same as a nonstop) and DAL-JAN-ATL is 737 miles (16 miles longer than the nonstop)

Neither JAN nor BHM currently have AirTran service to ATL. In addition, JAN is one of only three (?) cities that could have n/s service to DAL but doesn't. (HRL & CRP are the other two.)

The below info comes from the Consumer Airfare Report (Table 6) and is for Q3 2010

JAN-ATL is 341 miles. About 75 people per day travel this route (37.5 PDEW) DL's market share is 97.25%. The average one-way fare is $367.25 or about $1.08 per mile. That's too high. If WN brought average one-way fares down to a more reasonable level, they could probably generate a lot more local traffic.

For comparison, AUS-LBB is also 341 miles. The avg one-way fare in that market is $131.03 ( about $0.38 per mile) WN's market share for AUS-LBB is 96.4%. On average, 236 pax per day travel between the two cities (118 PDEW)

Plus the JAN-ATL leg would be fortified with additional through-passengers from DAL. Seems like it work much the same way as DAL-AMA-DEN.

BHM-ATL is 134 miles (kind of short) About 15 pax per day travel between those two cities (7.5 PDEW) DL's market share on that route is 99% The average one-way fare in that market is $340.48 - a whopping $2.54 per mile. Seems like another good opportunity for WN. In fact, these routes look exactly like the types of US routes Southwest went after when they were expanding BWI & the Northeast. Routes with very little local traffic where US had a market share of 80% or more and charged over $1.00 per mile.

Even if flights in the above two markets don't fill up right away with revenue pax, WN could still use these flights to shuttle FL/WN employees between DAL & ATL. I'd imagine there will be lots of Southwest company travel between the two cities in the coming years.

Plus it adds two new low-fare destinations from ATL that weren't previously served by FL and that's two more markets where DL would presumably be forced to lower their fares to compete.

There are other route possibilites, but I'll speculate about them in a separate post

N830MH

Isn't going to be surprisingly? I hear WN is going to repaint a new theme scheme. WN will announced on June 18, 2011. Lets wait and see. Where I hear the news? Which the specific new routes to be announced and I hear WN is getting more new nonstop from SJC-PHL/MCI/MCO/FLL/BWI/MDW/STL and HOU.

LoneStarMike

Up until now, much of WN's growth has occurred at DEN. I think Southwest will continue to grow at DEN, but at a slower pace as their focus shifts to ATL, But why not kill two birds with one stone?

How about ATL-DEN?

Data from Q3 1010 Consumer Airfare Report.

DEN-ATL - 1199 miles
1471 daily pax (735.5 PDEW)
Avg. fare $175.15 (11.9 cents/mile)
DL mkt share - 46.5% - avg. fare - $184.36
FL mkt share - 21.8% - avg. fare - $151.72

The average fare is pretty low, so I don't think there'd be much of a "Southwest Effect" on that route, but DEN would provide a good connection point to a whole lot of cities out west, that FL doesn't serve and where WN is strong - like SMF, SJC, OAK, RNO, TUS, etc. Those cities wouldn't necessarily have nonstop service to ATL, but at least there would be published service - where there is none now. And that would add additional markets out of ATL that DL would have to compete on. It would also provide more competition for UA & F9.

I'm not sure if WN would want to keep the few flights FL has at DEN now and just add their own, or phase out FL out all together at DEN- maybe when FL extends its schedules beyond Dec. 4? (I think FL only has 3 flights to ATL and 1 to MKE)

If WN does decide to operate some DEN-ATL flights on its own metal, I don't think they'd have more than 2 or 3 to start. But what I think you would
see is the nonstop service supplemented by additional 1-stop and direct service through other Non-AirTran cities.

The 3 that come to mind are OKC, TUL & LIT All three are pretty much "on the way"

DEN-ATL - 1199 miles
DEN-OKC-ATL - 1256 miles (57 miles longer)
DEN-TUL-ATL - 1215 miles (16 miles longer)
DEN-LIT-ATL - 1224 miles (25 miles longer)

Plus all three are smaller stations and if there were a lot of through passengers on both legs, not as many people would be getting off and on at the intermediate stop and they could probably turn the plane pretty quickly.

WN already operates nonstop DEN-OKC & DEN-TUL service, so they could possibly rework the schedule and have some of those flights go on to ATL.

(continued in next post)

LoneStarMike

Data from Q3 1010 Consumer Airfare Report.

OKC-ATL - 761 miles
168 daily pax (84 PDEW)
Avg. fare $311.94 (41 cents/mile)
DL mkt share - 69.8%


TUL-ATL
122 daily pax (61 PDEW)
Avg. fare - $297.81 (44 cents/mile)
DL mkt share - 60%

Should WN decide to serve these routes, I don't think the Southwest Effect would be as dramatic as it would be for JAN-ATL or BHM-ATL, but they could still lower fares substantially and probably generate new traffic.

An ATL-LIT-DEN flight would be a route that kills two birds with one stone. AirTran doesn't have any ATL-LIT nonstop service and WN doesn't have any nonstop LIT-DEN service.

ATL-LIT - 453 miles
122 daily pax (61 PDEW)
Avg. fare - $335.66 (74 cents/mile)
DL mkt share - 86.4%

Notice how the higher DL's market share in any given route is, the higher their fares are on a per-mile basis?

By comparison, OKC-DEN is 495 miles, the avg. fare is $132.42 (26.8 cents/mile), WN's mkt share is 61.3% and there are 334 daily pax on this route (167 PDEW)

I think there would definitely be a Southwest Effect on LIT-ATL if WN could bring those fares down to what they're charging on OKC-DEN.

LIT already has nonstop WN service to PHX & LAS, but not DEN.

LIT-DEN - 770 miles
135 daily pax (67.5 PDEW)
Avg. fare - $236.68 (30.7 cents/mile)
UA mkt share - 56.8%

Interestingly - even without nonstop service, WN still has a mkt share of 31.3% on this route.

So the proposed LIT service above would compete with DL in ATL, and UA in DEN. Might as well spread the LUV around.

While not as "on the way" between DAL & ATL, OKC, TUL, & especially LIT, would also make for decent connection points between DAL & ATL. WN could have 2 daily nonstops from ATL - OKC, TUL & DEN. One could go on to DEN, & the other could go to DAL. I know that OKC & TUL are more out of the way, but I've seen worse "out of the way" connections than that.

That would add three more additional LCC nonstop destinations from ATL and would be three markets where DL might need to adjust their fares.

emma dog

There is no way in flying pig heck that WN will fly ATL-BHM. It's an incredibly easy drive (just over 1 1/2 hours) and you are very car dependent in both cities on either end. So it doesn't make sense as a consumer to fly between ATL and BHM when you will need a car and it will take longer to clear TSA and the car rental agencies than just driving in the first place.

I know several lawyers that do business in both cities and they will fly between the two cities to perform depositions, etc., inside the airport lounges and nearby hotels. Those folks are probably accounting for many of the dozen or so people flying between ATL and BHM on a daily basis.


On to speculation, why not LUV-MSY-ATL? Or just not worry about the competition from DL and AA and sit tight until the complete merger and/or 2014??? A 1-stop to Dallas is a tough sell compared to a nonstop on those two unless fares were dramatically lower for the extra 45+ minutes of flight time.