Originally Posted by
lordsutch
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if Southwest really wanted to be in Memphis, they'd have come in years ago. Even if gates were an issue - which they're not, because half the airport's gates are vacant - the fact they now let AirTran's gate sit idle for hours between ATL flights when they could be running flights to HOU and MDW (two business markets that surely have enough O&D to work), along with the fact that schedule release after schedule release has shown no WN flights, suggests they have no intention of serving the market beyond the token presence to ATL that will surely go away as they wind down AirTran.
I'll say that to an outsider Southwest/Southwest expansion does appear rather cryptic. The heady days of the 1990s and LCC expansion are long gone.
I can't figure 'em (WN) out, but we do have the South Carolina expansion as a recent example. For those who don't know fares in SC (GSP, CAE, CHS) tended to be obscene. Widespread community outrage about high fares and specific community support for WN did seem to encourage Southwest entry.
Yes, Southwest fares may not always be the lowest, but it still seems the "Southwest" effect of lowering fares is still applicable.