Stefan Daystrom

I haven't looked at Australia or consider the intra-UK-only aspects of them, but as far as Europe I don't see anyone who's a Southwest copycat, in that a key element of the Southwest model is not to start service to any city that can't support about 10 flights a day minimum. Well, RyanAir and Virgin Express, for example, both fly to oodles of cities from which they have only one flight a day each, many others with just two a day. To me, that's not copying Southwest, that's maybe copying Frontier or some other US LCC that still uses a hub-and-spoke system. (Of course, I think Europe is like the US was in the 70s, the regulations don't yet allow one airline to point-to-point wherever within the EC it wants to, so the only way an LCC could model Southwest in Europe is in a big country where they could set up the equivalent of the Houston-San Antonio-Dallas "triangle" that was the famous start of Southwest. I'm not sure if any countries in Europe qualify for that, given the high-speed rails, maybe Germany. But certainly not Belgium (which is where RyanAir for Europe and Virgin Express are based)!

Viajero Joven

I'm sure there are similar discussions on WN international service somewhere....

If WN serves Mexico, ground time would not necessarily be that long. In fact, MTY and GDL seem to have fewer flights than, say, AUS so traffic wouldn't be a concern. There Additional time would be required from a customer standpoint (i.e. customs/immigrations delays upon arrival) but with the ground crew in place, I can see them turning a 737 just as fast as at a US destination.

One barrier is taxes: a $99 each way fare becomes almost $300 after all international taxes are factored in. Way back, ValuJet tried $59 fares each way between IAD and YUL, but later dropped the service.

Re. WN to Iceland, they did have a limited partnership/codesharing agreement with IcelandAir a while back, but I think the interlining process was a barrier.

Sure there may be other markets to tap within the US, but I think the Mexican (and to some extent, the trans-border Canadian) markets offer a lot of potential.