dlaue

The DOT has today announced a systematic process for allowing airlines to reduce the number of airports they fly to as an overall percentage of their destinations served. The way this will work:

• Airlines have until May 18, 2020, to submit prioritized lists of airports they want to suspend service to
• The idea is that the DOT will then allow airlines to drop certain airports, while still being sure that every airport has service from at least one airline
• If an airport is only served by one airline then no exceptions will be granted, while if multiple airlines request exemptions for a given airport, then the decision will be based on how the airline prioritized the airport, with at least one airline having to maintain service
• Airlines will be granted exceptions for either five total markets, or 5% of their total markets served, whichever is greater.

QUESTIONS: Are there any airports served by Southwest and no other airline?

Which, if any, airports will WN put on its list? Islip? Long Beach? San Francisco?

Let the speculation begin!

djp98374

Midway hobby and Love are three airports southwest is the primary carrier but the act as hubs there so they aren’t leaving.

djp98374

One airport I see is Dulles.
san Francisco is possible but it depends on how much business travel they do there.

a bunch of secondary airports in the east coast

Often1

Both IAD and SFO are business-heavy and generate high PRASM fares. That may not matter right now, but rebuilding a business base is tough enough.

sdsearch

Anyone other than JetBlue might leave Long Beach. Delta left both Long Beach and Burbank airports recently, effectively saying that "LAX is enough for now" to cover that whole area. Keep in mind that with traffic low, the travel time to LAX is greatly reduced form outlying areas of SoCal right now.

I'm not familiar with what other airlines are still at Islip, and that could make the difference.

Obviously United "owns" San Francisco, and Alaska is very strong there, while Southwest has traditionally focused more on OAK.

737MAX8

Frontier, American Eagle, and Southwest offer service to ISP.

Frontier and Southwest are from multiple cities (under normal conditions), AA just to PHL.

LegalTender

I take GK at his word that business travel in a recession is last to rebound. He's single-minded on rebooted tourism with "no plans" to drop any domestic destinations.

nsx

This is not a normal recession. Rebound will occur when fear subsides. I expect business travel to lead the rebound, because it can be profitable for the customer and because lead time is short for business travel and long for vacation travel.

djp98374

service out of IAD appears to be limited based on direct route offerings. They also have DCA and BWI.

another factor..this summer metro is closed for all stations west of underground station of ballston. Getting from IAD to DC proper or pentagon will cost a $75+ cab fare

ryw

Southwest has gained a loyal following in the intra-CA market by serving so many airports in both Northern California (OAK, SFO, SJC in the SF area plus SMF) and Southern California (LAX, BUR, LGB, SNA, ONT in the LA area and SAN) that I'd be a bit surprised for them to drop service at any of them. The point to point service means that there's a pretty robust network of flights between each Northern and Southern California airport.

I haven't looked closely at the current schedules, but my guess it they would cut flights between some of the city pairs (for instance, I think SFO-ONT is a newer city pair that they've introduced within the past couple years which perhaps would get cut again, but they'd still maintain service at both airports via other destinations), before cutting service and consolidating a whole airport.

Though I am curious about their long term strategy for LGB though, given JetBlue scaling back there.

ursine1

Re: Business travel rebounding: Both good points of view. Factor in that many businesses have now come to realize that Zoom, etc. can replace travel, especially at a time when companies are looking to reduce expenses. I expect a significant drop in business travel for many years to come.

nmpls

WN is still running at least 2 flights a day from SMF to socal, but 3 to LGB and 5 to SAN. Given that they're basically the official airline of the State (we basically can only fly WN, AA, and DL as that's I guess who we have contracts with. AA and DL have minimal networks outside of LAX and SFO. We can sneak on to some AS flights due to codeshares) I don't foresee any cancelled destinations from SMF intra-CA. That said, the state is likely going to cut state travel significantly, so i could see the frequency go down -- the ridiculous state employee line at Enterprise after the SMF-ONT lands tells you some huge percentage of those people are state employees.
I don't for see any major drops in intra-CA flights generally from WN. WN's big advantage here is that you can fl from non-hub norcal airports to non-hub socal airports at a frequency no one else rivals. People really value not having to faff around with SFO or LAX fighting traffic each way.
Interstate I think we may lose some routes, particularly from secondary airports.

Collierkr

I disagree. The rebound is a long way off. Businesses are permanently going to change travel. Individuals are going to change how they travel. When the dust settles we will have fewer flight choices and likely higher prices.

nsx

Then we will just have to bore the youngsters with stories of how much better travel was in the good old days.

storewanderer

I'm in an industry that traveling is fairly heavy. So far, everyone I'm talking to (including people at competitors) is really liking this "no travel" thing and everyone is amazed how much can get done via video calling, etc.

I am not sure how many people liked leaving at 5 AM Monday morning and not getting home until 8 PM Friday night (unless there was a delay, then who knows when). The packed flights and packed airports didn't help the experience any either. This Coronavirus has been the perfect excuse to stop travel. Truth be known, the travel experience was treading on a lot of people and some people who had frequent bad luck (significantly delayed flights) are more than happy to not travel as much.

I would like to think business travel will come back. Business travel essentially subsidized leisure travel so it was cheaper to travel for leisure (between the lower costs on the weekends for nice business hotels, accumulating points for business stays then using on leisure stays, etc.). Without the high rates paid by business travelers, travel providers will either have to cut services or increase prices to leisure travelers.

Remember, if the business can figure out how to serve a customer remotely without traveling, it saves money for all parties involved... and time... the profit is lost is if you lose the business because you don't want to travel so to that extent some business travel will come back. It won't be down 95% forever. But I think we are looking at 50%+ declines in business travel in the coming years and a very slow rebound, if ever.