I happened to witness first-hand Southwest's advent and expansion at BWI starting in the 1990s and at that time and place it was transformative and nothing short of miraculous. Fares were low, service was excellent, and the expansion of service at BWI was a tonic to the local economy. There was a dark side as it did destroy the BWI/Usairways hub.

That being said, today's is not your father's Southwest. The lagacies (Delta included) have all used bankruptcy to shed expensive costs and contracts. Meanwhile, Southwest has rewarded its employees with industry leading pay. Purportedly because of it operational concepts and operational efficiency Southwest still enjoys about an 8% cost advantage over Delta.

Delta is a juggernaut at ATL and has a 2/3 market share, and as others have noted Air Tran (with even lower costs) has been embedded at ATL, so I would not expect fares to drop hugely. If Southwest wanted to bring the pain, it could start targeting some of the more lucrative captive Southern markets such as :CHS, SAV, and GSP with ATL service. Will this happen? perhaps one day when Air Tran is fully assimilated.

At MKE first Air Tran and now Southwest have been great. No one can touch the special "wanna get away fares"; Delta runs and hides with hub service and NW's little Frontier clone ran whimpering with its tail between its legs back to DEN.

Oh, and by the way, Southwest's award redemption is regularly scored tops in the industry for availability of awards.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj