<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Stefan Daystrom:
Originally posted by Dan Burgess:
Southwest could easily fly to Hawaii or Alaska with their current aircraft.
To how many places how many times a day?
You seem to be forgetting one of Southwest's rules of adding airports (besides quick turns): They don't add airports unless they can justify at less 10 flights a day from that airport, spread over several destinations, typically a mix of the closest ones outside of 3 hour driving time and one or more of their semi-hubs (Baltimore, Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orlando, etc).
So it's unrealistic to just look at whether Southwest could fly to SOMEWHERE from Hawaii or Alaska, but whether they could fly OFTEN ENOUGH to ENOUGH DIFFERENT destinations from there to make starting service there (on their point-to-point model) practical.</font>
I was just saying that logistically, they could serve HNL and ANC with their existing 737-700s. Yes, for HNL they would have to outfitted with auxiliary power units and such for ETOPS operations, but it could be done. But I didn't say that it could be done profitably under their current service model.
You are correct in that Southwest's business model requires them to have 10 flights/day to begin service at an airport. This might be one of the several reasons they haven't started serving HNL and ANC.
Hypothetically, if Hawaiian should go under, I could foresee Southwest having three flights per day from HNL to SAN, LAX, OAK, and SEA, satisfying their service entry requirement. But I'm not predicting that it will happen.
Ten years ago, I didn't think we'd ever see transcontinental flights on Southwest. But here they are.
Ten years from now, perhaps this incredible airline will have made accomplishments that none of us are considering now.
[This message has been edited by Dan Burgess (edited Feb 16, 2004).]