Originally Posted by
ksweeney
That's exactly what happened to STL. I flew in last night and noticed DL had an MD88, CRJ900, and an EMB175, UA had a couple ERJs, AA had a 757 and a couple of MD-80s, but WN had 11 737s on the ground. WN's presence is like a tumor to the legacy carriers. It grows and pushes out the other carriers.
I did have to laugh when I first clicked on the link and saw my old home town airport in the photo. Good ole D. I remember flying Ozark out of those gates.
I will say at least STL has consolidated flights into A/C and East (Terminal 2).
WN has a very robust business. It's similar to BWI. Lots of vacant gates except for the WN terminal. I mainly fly DL and when I go through A in STL it's a busy place. It's sad to see C only partially occupied, but it is the concourse with the most space. The recent renovations have definitely helped.
To the comment above, if WN drives out the legacies cities that open their arms to them just have to accept that. WN has a business model that works for them. In today's environment they bring mainline service to many cities that would never see it from the legacy carriers.
In the case of DL, I think it's only a matter of time before CVG and MEM are just spokes in the network.