wetrat0

It's been a few months since Southwest started a big expansion of flights from DCA, which started after US/AA divested a bunch of slots in their merger (here is an article from one of the announcements). What is interesting is that Southwest chose to go up directly against US/AA on many of these routes.

I switched some of my IND-DCA flying to Southwest due primarily to the novelty factor and secondarily to no change fees, free DISH tv on board, and the times worked for me. Here is what I have observed so far:

PROS:
+ No change fee
+ Free TV
+ Light loads mean I have a row to myself on every flight and don't have to worry about T-24
+ Snack selection is about as good the F snack basket on US
+ $84 one way flights

CONS:
- Almost never on time
- No first class upgrades
- Less frequency than US
- Terminal A, which in addition to being a terrible design, also requires a shuttle or 15 minute walk to the metro.

Honestly, the whole experience of Terminal A is probably what is going to kill this experiment for me and make me switch back to US.

But my bigger question is, what the heck is Southwest doing at DCA? My last 3 flights have had roughly 30, 40, and 10 people respectively (some of whom were through passengers). I wonder whether they have/had any strategy going into this market. They are going head-to-head with an established carrier who is flying these routes many times a day, has a lot of elites to draw on, and can fill excess capacity with connecting passengers. I just don't see how these routes can last on Southwest.

schmoove

Biggest pro is no longer having to drive to Dulles or BWI.

3Cforme

DCA has lots of O&D passengers. There's room for a second carrier to compete AA, particularly one with a different value proposition (no change fees, all mainline). Chart source: Orlando Airport, IIRC.

wetrat0

Of course, but previously I had been flying US, not driving to BWI. My question is whether Southwest can really establish a permanent presence at DCA specifically (rather than Washington in general) or if this is just an experiment and they're going to pull out in a few months. It has some implications for me as a frequent flyer because I need to decide whether to go for A-List Preferred or go back and requalify for US Gold/AA Plat.

Either way, I like Southwest being in the market because it keeps the fares down (at least as long as they're hemorrhaging money flying around 3/4 empty jets).

rsteinmetz70112

Since the availability of those gates/slots came up suddenly and was on a pretty short time frame, I suspect the Southwest just jumped on it without really analyzing how things would fit into their grand plan. It will probably take a while for them to figure out how to use those slots effectively.

hughc99

Flew the DCA-CAK route over MLK weekend. WGA $58 each way, both flights were about 40% full. Much more convenient than the BWI-CLE route I used to fly, but hard to imagine that route sticking unless something picks up.

FindAWay

Mrs. FindAWay and I flew MDW to DCA on Friday, 12/26 and the flight was nearly full (less than 5 open seats). On the retun, Sunday, 12/28, the last DCA-MDW had a load of only 20-some pax.

My parents flew 15 minutes earlier DCA-MKE on 12/28 and they said their flight was completely full.

I think WN will be changing some of the DCA schedule in the next extension.

sfozrhfco

WN will stick it out at DCA. If however you are relying on them to always fly IND-DCA, that is hardly certain. If the route is not likely to be profitable after XX amount of time, they will simply use the slot for some other route. WN went after the slots. How they use them over the long term is likely to be a moving target.

rtalk25

I don't think CAK-DCA will last. I'm not sure about IND-DCA and CMH-DCA, as Southwest might be wanting to build a focus city at those airports?

It's odd that it's not flying DCA-MCO and DCA-FLL for WAS based pax. I realize that JetBlue is on these routes, but atleast to MCO, the DirecTV on JetBlue shouldn't be a major advantage. Southwest has free TV also, but you need an tablet.

It flies 5x daily on PHL-MCO, and PHL is a smaller less important spoke for Southwest now than DCA/IAD combined. Business pax that fly out of DCA/IAD could use Southwest and then use the MCO flight to redeem points or just buy tickets to take the family.

As for FLL, there are also FLL international gateway plans, and a DCA-FLL flight would help feed into that international gateway when it opens.

Another route option could be DCA-MSP. It doesn't feel compelled to launch BWI-MSP likely because Delta will have the advantage. Delta will obviously still have the advantage on a DCA-MSP, but atleast Southwest will be flying into the preferred Washington region airport, so if it's going to be #2 it might as well fly into the preferred airport. It might have to keep fares low to fill the plane, or have the flight continue to LAS or somewhere, so some thru pax are onboard.

wetrat0

This morning one of the MDW flights was delayed due to mechanical and they were announcing that they had reaccom ALL passengers on the other flight. I realize Tuesday is slow but DC to Chicago should be easier to make work than IND, CAK, etc.

rtalk25

I think they rely alot on connecting pax in MDW.

Frankly, I'd think selling IAD/DCA-MDW-BOS stuff is junky. Maybe it's an excess of seats going to MDW from DCA/IAD and Southwest doesn't want to sell $79 WGAs on the route to fill on O&D. But Southwest sells the connections like that instead.

PotomacApproach

They're not giving up those slots. Also, loads are light this time of year on other airlines. Just did a DCA-ORD RT on AA with both flights <50% full.

knope2001

Here are loads for the most recent six months to DCA on WN/FL (through October 2014):

61.2% ATL (5x/day)
92.5% AUS (1x/day)
53.9% BNA (3x/day)
76.4% DAL (started October, 57 trips operated)
81.9% HOU (2x/day)
89.9% MCI (1x/day)
60.9% MDW (built to 9x/day)
73.1% MKE (4x/day)
56.8% MSY (2x/day)
69.0% RSW (1x/day)
88.8% STL (2x/day)
60.0% TPA (2x.day)

Some of those markets only started during the period (for example DAL was only started in October).

It will be interesting to see how loads develop over time.

rsteinmetz70112

I if loads don't improve I would expect to see frequency reduced on some routes and new routes added.

rtalk25

I wouldn't be surprised if IAD-MDW was cut in order to help improve DCA-MDW loads.

I think the only reason it wasn't cut entirely was because Frontier had announced IAD as a focus city with IAD-ORD around the time Southwest was launching DCA-MDW. Southwest didn't want to make it too easy for Frontier and responded with keeping some Chicago and added LAS from IAD. But Frontier has stuck on it's IAD-Chicago route with a different price point that it's irrelevant to Southwest really now.

I'd think IAD-PHX could be a good route as a replacement if IAD-MDW is cut. PHX remains a large WN station hub, and there isn't that intense competition from IAD with US not flying the route. So if one is flying in perimeter, DCA is the go to airport, and if going atleast two time zones out west, IAD has additional options. I'd think IAD-LAX and OAK might be too much though and might start to impact BWI offerings. WN would be more directly competing against VX and higher frequency UA options also.