Tim34

Their CEO said in an interview that SW was going to "slow their roll" a bit. Who knows what that means? Don't get me wrong, I love Virgin America, they will soon be flying to SEA. The point is that jet fuel is very expensive and the industry is going to have to adapt. Southwest's CEO did mention a possible Airtran/ Southwest merger which is great news!!!!

BlueHorseShoe2000

The reason Midwest cut MCI-SNA was due to insufficient demand and not because of operating costs at the airport.

In exchange for slots at SNA, Midwest agreed to operate 2 flights per day on weekdays. Service commenced in October 2003. While operating this schedule, monthly loads never surpassed 70% and were often in the high 40%/low 50% range. It's doubtful they were making much, if any, money on those flights. In November 2004, Midwest dropped the frequency to 1x daily and used the extra aircraft time to launch MCI-MSY and MCI-FLL. They SNA airport commission gave Midwest until May 1, 2005 to return to 2 daily flights or they would be forced to discontinue service. The last Midwest flight into SNA took place on April 30, 205.

During 2004, Midwest surveyed passengers who used the SNA service. Many indicated that they preferred going to LAX but went to SNA because of Midwest. That's why Midwest decided to challenge Southwest on MCI-LAX, and the route has performed well ever since.

YX802

Whenever I've flown MCI-LAX the flights have always been 80-90% full, so it looks like that route is quite successful. Since YX installed the signature seats on the MKE non stops, i just use the MKE nonstop.

The several trips I made MCI-SNA were reasonably full also. Now that the code share with NWA has begun I doubt we would ever see a return to SNA.