rtalk25

I noticed that some routes cannot be found through Southwest.com, like ATL-NAS in the Winter.

Southwest will fly BWI-NAS once daily in the Winter, but it appears some feeder markets like PIT can't use the flight, with limited frequencies on PIT-BWI. Southwest runs 3x daily PIT-BWI and 2x daily PIT-ATL but the first frequency of PIT-BWI gets in too early and the second one too late.

Then Southwest is also reducing PIT-ATL to just 2x daily. I think it's putting itself in a disadvantaged position against Delta to compete for O&D on the route that operates 8x daily. Southwest is offering a 5:45am and 4:00pm flight on PIT-ATL.

Anyways as far as connections, a lot of the eastern US has a very early morning flight to ATL, that is timed for CUN. But in a market like PIT, Southwest is offering PIT-MDW-CUN, PIT-BWI-CUN and PIT-ATL-CUN all about equal in time, but zero flights to NAS.

Would Southwest be more inclined to ramp up BWI and ramp down ATL or can both co-exist as international gateways?

If BWI is ramped up as an international gateway, would Southwest also be inclined to offer 1-2x daily of RIC-BWI, PHL-BWI and NYC (LGA/EWR)-BWI to feed BWI international? From a round of cuts a couple of years ago, the NYC-BWI routes were all cut, but they do provide feed likely to the Southeast US, Florida and international.

joshua362

I don't know the answers but you would have thought after 4 years of anticipation and the upcoming winter Caribbean travel season, WN would have had this all figured out, including make-able connections and being able to move bags / re-clear security without all the hoops & problems other FT members are reporting.

What is the point of having international service if your customers can't get on the flights? For the benefit only of those living in Baltimore and Atlanta?

Did AirTran have these problems? They really should have let AirTran run alone as a separate wholly owned subsidiary, controlled its prices, let the FF programs transfer freely (including CP's) and everyone would have come out ahead...

rsteinmetz70112

Southwest has been ramping down Atlanta for the last few years. Airtran flights are down 30% or more,

flyventure

With almost 99% certainty, you'll NEVER see WN operation PHL-BWI. People seem to forget that O&D is still king for WN. The connections are nice, but they care more about local markets above all else. This is why they are going to have international flights going from nearly a dozen US cities. Not everyone city is going to have a connection, that's fine. They don't run a hub and bank system so it will happen.

Passengers can get on the flights perfectly fine - in the markets they are being offered. Not everyone is going to have service. Is it only for the benefit of local passengers? Mostly, but there are opportunities for those with connection options.

Did AirTran have this supposed problem? AirTran was mostly a hub and spoke airline and had to schedule things as such - Southwest is not. People need to understand the differences. If you are so focused on how AirTran was, you'll never get what Southwest has been for over 40 years.

Flights are down thanks to removing many cities that would have no way to work in the Southwest network. I would go as far to say there are still more markets that can be cut (Flint). This is what happens when you go from Hub and Spoke with artificially high number of flights, to one that is more focused on O&D. ATL was never going to stay at 200+ flights...only MDW, LAS, and BWI have that distinction. I'm not sure where the shock is that flights are being cut at ATL, especially when they are also replacing 117 seat 717s on many routes with 143 seat 737s.

rsteinmetz70112

Actually Airtran did have the same issues with connecting flights. depending on the schedule you might be able to get to an International destination but not get back or not be able to get there at all, even though there were flights to return on. It changed from time to time as the schedule changed.

LegalTender

To say "there are opportunities for those with connection options" and this is "what Southwest has been for over 40 years" is poor salesmanship.

There was a public pledge to "fully convert the Southwest network to support connecting service to international destinations by the end of 2014."

No promise of daily legal connections to every international destination - just some vaguely-comprehensible network.

joshua362

I agree with you there! To buy an airline for its destinations and operations then chalk it up to we can't (or won't) do that because this is the way we've always done things (like O&D) - is ridiculous. If their goal was to eliminate competition yet grow internationally, they should have just left things alone just like they did 2011-2013...

lougord99

There was a pledge to fully support connecting service - which they are doing. There was never a pledge - and it is ludicrous to expect one - that they would support connecting service from where you happen to be located.

LegalTender

I said they made no promise to offer legal connections to international destinations from every station/city.

But identifying a scheme to "fully convert the Southwest network to support connecting service to international destinations by the end of 2014" is blatantly hyperbolic.

flyventure

At least someone gets it.

Good thing they aren't the only airline around, eh? Connectivity will improve over time as more markets are added and additional connection options are available. If the airline's network isn't going to work for you, then you at least have other options available to you.

LegalTender

Southwest's network is not fully converted to support connecting service to international destinations when customers see this:
Followed by this:
Not everyone understands it's about a legal connection on a given date rather than all service ending between city pairs.

joshua362

Gee, if they only made an effort to make the answers match the questions... (i.e. programmed the real error message rather than serving up some random gibberish). Can't see how they expect to keep up the international loads they inherited from AirTran with such a laissez faire attitude!

buckeyefanflyer

Southwest will not be using ATL as a traditional hub, significantly reducing flights a Air Tran did which would explain why PIT-ATL is being reduced. Several other cities also seeing similar reductions to ATL, CMH, DTW, and CAK to start.

djp98374

With Southwest they have a "hub" in Nashville so either Atlanta or Nashville would survive and the other would be downsized. It looks like BNA won.

It will be interesting to see how they route ATL PAX to Bahama or elsewhere given they have stopped running the shorter 4 hr drive time routes of which ATL-BNA is one.

rtalk25

Technically, it never offered ATL-BNA, nor did AirTran. I think BNA pax will route via BWI, and maybe MCO and HOU. I think BWI is preferrable (shortest time on two legs total) for most international but maybe HOU is for some routes.