VegasGambler

Obviously a direct flight is better than a connecting flight.

eponymous_coward

The problem is VX will fly to DAL and SFO nonstop from AUS.

WN will fly to ATL, BNA, BWI, MDW, DCA, DEN, ELP, CUN EWR, FLL, HRL, HOU, LAS, LAX, LBB, MSY, OAK, SNA, MCO, PHX, SAN, SJC, SJD STL, and TPA nonstop from AUS. This isn't even a contest as to who's serving AUS better, if you assume people care more about a nonstop than mood lighting. Offering directs LAX/LGA/DCA through DAL doesn't really change that.

VX is going to have problems aggressively expanding in DAL with two gates out of twenty...

bayhouse

Yea, I agree, but VX isn't even trying to serve most of those markets. They're not trying to serve them from AUS, nor are they trying to serve them from anywhere.

VX has had incredible success on 2x daily AUS-SFO. The product is a huge hit there. It stands to reason that people in this market would be fine with a short well timed connection in DAL to take VX to LAX/LGA/DCA.

It's important to remember that theres a strong segment of the population that would rather fly VX even if it involves a connection. This is particularly true for F and MCS -- and although premium benefits don't really matter for AUS-DAL, they definitely do for AUS-DAL-Final Destination.

VegasGambler

I don't understand your logic at all. VX has a better product. Of course if they don't go where you want to go then you take the inferior product. But if they do then you take the better one.

WN definitely has more routes. They have been around for longer. I don't see how that's at all relevant. The fact that they fly to lots of other cities doesn't factor into my decision of which airline to take when I want to fly SFO-LAS. Obviously if I want to fly somewhere that VX doesn't go, I don't take them.

VegasGambler

This is true. Once, I was flying LAS-SFO on a 7am flight and I was sitting beside someone who was flying LAS-SFO-SAN because she refused to fly WN. Her logic was that she would rather relax on two VX flights in F than suffer the indignity of a single WN flight.

Honestly, I'm not sure which one I'd choose if I had to make that trip. I'd probably suck it up and fly WN (I'm impatient) but I wouldn't be happy about it.

gooseman13

It's particularly irrelevant since Southwest's elite loyalty program really doesn't provide that much added bonus. Whereas status on AA might get me an upgrade, points towards international travel, etc and could cause me to choose AA over VX.

bayhouse

I've flown LAS-SFO-SAN (or the reverse) several times on VX in F. Totally better than WN. The cherry on top is you can buy seats in F for $262 -- a huge bargain for a connecting F itinerary where each individual flight would cost something in the mid-200s.

Tracer_SEA

Surprised no one has posted about Cush saying they will pull DAL-AUS...

dayone

“Maybe Austin is not the best use of gates.”

VX is reviewing the route and DAL gate utilization.

TheBOSman

They've had some dirt cheap sales on the route AUS-DAL, $39 one-way in economy, $119 or less in F. I know SRB and the general VX management are fans of flying to "cool" cities, and AUS definitely qualifies as one of those. AUS also already has the SFO service so the infrastructure is in place here, unlike at say IAH or somewhere else. They could try ORD but they would have to put a huge effort at it (AA flies ORD-DFW seemingly hourly, WN flies MDW-DAL 7x daily), and yields are currently trash on the route due to NK, $41 each way (AA/NK/WN all charging this right now for many flights on many dates) is not profitable. Maybe BOS? SEA? Or do they just increase SFO/LAX/LGA/DCA service?

GrayAnderson

I think the key with VX vs. WN in some of those markets is that the experiences with the two are almost diametrically opposed (cattle call seating comes to mind). This is not to say that one is inherently better than the other (both work for different folks and different needs), but they're sufficiently different that one can make a case for both coexisting in various large markets without eating into one another.

With that being said, my understanding is that VX ramping up in SFO-LAX has much to do with a combination of demand in that market (it's a massive market) and actually having the aircraft to manage more frequency (witness the 15x experiments this summer).

FWIW, if I had to guess, unless a really good opportunity comes along in the vein of the DAL/LGA/DCA moves I see much of VX's efforts being towards adding frequencies to existing markets and/or serving other combinations of markets (e.g. I'd love a Chicago-East Coast link, but I know the yield situation is a mess; I'd love a Northeast-to-MCO link but I know MCO is a messy market for VX and I'm going to be very sad if they drop that route).

Tracer_SEA

The real reason for AUS was connecting traffic. Cush admitted that 25% of the DAL-LGA/DCA flights were filled with AUS pax. So when AUS-DAL goes away, those remaining DAL flights get even emptier...

GrayAnderson

There's another hint that seems to be out there from what I read here:
http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/2...-flights.html/

Part of the purpose behind the DAL-AUS flights may have been *ahem* to fill slots so VX could reallocate them later. DAL-AUS is the shortest city pair VX serves (I checked; it comes in below LAX-LAS and LAX-SFO). If I had to guess, VX needed 3-5 round trips per day to "properly utilize" the gates and didn't have the equipment to run a longer market (DAL-ORD, for example). So, they gambled on the short market they figured they had the best shot at (Austin, Houston, and San Antonio were the best markets to look at for this in terms of size and distance; with their marketing and whatnot, I think they made the right call of the three).

It didn't pay off, but adding an aircraft or two would allow them to connect to/from Chicago...and frankly, plug a hole in their network. If Amtrak's OTP goes to pot in the future and DCA-DAL-ORD is a viable routing then it really plugs that remaining hole in the system for me (CHI being Amtrak's LD hub).

Yellowjj

Fixed it for you. Everyone knows the primary goal was to get DL thrown out of DAL,...AUS was simply the easiest way to claim their gates were fully utilized and had no space to share.

GrayAnderson

It is only gate squatting insofar as they didn't want to be forced to share slots with Delta and then have to fight to get them back a year or two later when the already-on-order planes came in. I figure of the 10 they have coming, you allocate two to SFO-Hawaii, two to increased West Coast service, four to increased transcontinental service, and the remaining two go to ditching AUS and replacing it with ORD or somewhere else out of DAL.