Sorry, but I've done this analysis before. The "business" traffic to/from Hawai'i is very, very small compared to the leisure travel to/from Hawai'i (mainly mainland visitors, but also Hawai'i residents vacationing).

So, the very small percentage of business travelers in no way justifies starting a route to Hawai'i. In fact, I suggest listening to the transcript from the earnings call. Gary says Hawai'i sevice may come "some day".

I'm pretty bummed about them leaving EYW. I said so on their Facebook page also.
And while I agree with those of you who say under Her they would have never been there to begin with but the point is they were. And it was a celebration that they went to Key West. Not sure how I will make my next trip there. I so much more prefer the feeling of landing in Key West. The door opens and I usually yell, SEIZE THE ROCK!
Driving there doesn't give me the same rush. and wasn't the new airport built in fact to some point to accommodate them?

Not the end of the world by any means but I will think twice about Delta into EYW on my next trip.

Does anyone know when SW officially leaves Key West? My wife and I were planning on flying down there in May on SWA.

The final flights operate on June 6.

re
 

it was mentioned in some press release that one of the main reasons they were killing these routes was limited flights and having to maintain gate, baggage, and ground crew for only 3 flights a day....I don't see why they don't just do a seasonal run and increase to 6 flights a day to justify operating expenses at the facilities.

The ramp and ops positions were contracted at EYW because it has less than 12 flights a day and was opened to Southwest metal after 2009. Not sure about customer service, which operates under a different union contract (IAM)--if the CSAs at Key West are actual Southwest employees they're likely to be senior and thus very expensive for a small operation.

Don't leave Key West
 

Key West has got to have more festivals than any other town in America and because there are SO many bars with entertainment every day of the year and SO many people go there several times a year…this has got to be a great place for a destination. Because Southwest respects musicians and their very precious guitars--this is THE only airline for so many musicians. With the festivals, musicians and enormous traffic, why are you leaving Key West? I just don't buy that this is not economically feasible. Please re-consider. IF we have to switch to another airline for Key West, we will switch for the other destinations also. We want to stick with 1 airline for everything. BOOOOOO….

If not for economics, what do you think Southwest's motivation is for leaving? Do you think they just woke up one day and decided to be mean to people in Key West just because?

Welcome to Flyertalk, CityGirl2!

I would suspect the main driver for dumping EYW is the fact that outbound flights are weight restricted and this limits where the 737 can fly to and with how many passengers. I want to say outbound can be limited to 100 pax from what I've heard from people, which means 43 empty seats right away.

If Key West wants more pax service then a plan needs to be put in motion to determine if they can turn NAS Key West into a joint use field. A 10,000' runway would eliminate the issues of weight restrictions.

????????????

Flew in / out last March and there was 143 pax each way.

Hence why I said "CAN BE" limited. They can't go very far with a full load of people and baggage. EYW would do much better if it could be served from BWI, HOU, and ATL.

Thanks for the clarification, its the weight of the fuel that limits them outbound. I think most people realize that they are going to have and connect to get to Key West and I thought they did it perfectly from larger, many direct flights like MCO & TPA.

Then again, out of ISP, I'm used to having to connect to everywhere. Sometimes twice.

If Hawaii is such an unprofitable destination for airlines, why do so many airlines serve Hawaii from the mainland?

(Hint: because there's money to be made.)

The only Hawaiian destination with significant business travel, though, is Honolulu (HNL), not just B2B travel but also business travelers heading to Honolulu for business conventions. Hawaii is also a popular destination for corporate retreats of west coast based companies.

Again, if service to Hawaii wasn't so profitable, there would be a lot fewer airlines serving the Islands from the mainland.

Key West though is an apple to oranges comparison in regards to service to Honolulu. The leisure/business ratio of passengers flying to Honolulu is more comparable to the leisure/business ratio of passengers flying to Las Vegas (another destination that's well served by many airlines) than Key West, which is almost exclusively leisure travelers.

The problem with Hawaii for WN as I see it is that points-travelers will mostly fill every flight before very many cash customers can buy tickets.

The legacies can throttle availability however they want. WN's points~cash system won't allow that. Think how many people would convert Ultimate Reward points for Hawaii. A couple big bloggers promote that and there would be an avalanche.

It's a real problem for cash-like loyalty programs, especially for WN with no cancellation penalty, one I doubt they fully understood, and why I think 2.0 may not be permanent in present form.

Of course, they could always disallow points usage for specific routes.