I am not sure what the point of the above post was with context to the current discussion. The bottom-line, however hard it may be to swallow, remains that the business traveller has been subsidising the leisure traveller for a long time and their absence will hurt the majors.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztra...ded-planes.htm

Here are some things to ponder about Southwest vs the majors.

Comparing Southwest to majors is not an apples to apples comparison. Southwest does not fly international. They do not fly trans-continental. Their entire business-model is based on extreme utilization of planes in the short-haul market, lower maintenance costs (single class of planes), lower crew cost (no traditional salary model which is hard to uproot), zero frills service and a carefully selected set of low-cost airports with a lot of freebies thrown in by the locals. Every year, small regional airports BID for Southwest and offer all kind of sops for them. On the other hand the majors have to deal with the NIMBY crowd, noise/flight restrictions and higher fees and delays at the major airport.

And as a number of others have mentioned a LOT of business people do fly Southwest, specially for last-minute travel. Southwest too rewards its flyers with the free Companion Pass etc. and Southwest virtually owns the smaller airports they fly from.

I have seen Islip detoriate from a fun place to fly, to absolute hell. The airport is served by the feeder airlines of the majors and used to service small 30-50 passenger aircraft. Southwest has 5-6 737s scheduled to fly within an hour in the morning. As a result a security check point designed to service 200 people in 2 hours is forced to check 4 times as many. You can guess what happens. I missed my 6:30 flight on American today but luckily got on the 7:30AM flight which was oversold but flew with empty seats since 8 of the 29 passengers could not get through security! The Southwest agents were trying their best to squeeze their passengers through while the rest of us gaped at the scene. In the word of the DL GSC, "Southwest virtually owns the airport, and till the new dedicated Soutwest terminal (being paid for by the town) comes up, you will have to endure this hell".

Southwest has filled a gap in the air-travel market and serves a well-defined niche. However I cannot fly to Europe on Southwest, nor can I go to Hawaii; I need to take a 3 stop flight which takes 10 hours to go from New York (ISP) to California (SJC/LAX). Their product does NOT compare to the product of the majors.

WN not providing a fast-track line is a WN business decision based on the profile of their passengers (and the unwritten leverage they enjoy at the smaller airports they fly from). However the majors who count on their frequent flyers to pay more for the business fares have the right to make sure that their best customers are taken care of.

Denying the majors this right, IMHO, is anti-competitive. It is equivalent to having a $2/gallon gas tax on private automobiles to encourage the use of public transport (Yeah the bus also gets your there so why do you need your car?)

[This message has been edited by SJC2ISP (edited 04-01-2002).]