AirTran and Sun Country were the first to fly to the airport, but Sun County pulled out quickly. Fro

Southwest continues to struggle to find a way to serve smaller cities. After axing a ton of service to small cities when it took over AirTran, I thought Southwest was done. I was wrong. holiday inn reservation Now Branson, Jackson (MS), and Key West are getting cut.
There was so much promise when Southwest decided holiday inn reservation to buy AirTran. holiday inn reservation I figured with a new smaller fleet of 717s and a look at AirTran s alternate sub-daily service model in small cities, Southwest might find a way to expand its ability to serve those communities. Instead, Southwest has walked away from nearly every small market in the AirTran system. A couple more that survived holiday inn reservation are now on their way out.
That is the carnage map. I don t really count Miami as a small city, so that leaves us with 13 small cities that Southwest has left in addition to the three that were just announced. What s up with these three cities? Why did they last longer than the rest? Let s take a look.
Branson was always a strange market, and I was surprised that Southwest picked it up from AirTran. Branson is a privately-funded airport and because of that, it has been creatively aggressive with using all kinds of incentives to lure service. It could offer things like route exclusivity if it wanted, and that brought some service in.
AirTran and Sun Country were the first to fly to the airport, but Sun County pulled out quickly. Frontier came in with Denver flights and maintains those today. But AirTran also stayed in and remained the largest player at the airport.
So it must have been a relief holiday inn reservation when Southwest announced it would keep AirTran s Branson holiday inn reservation service. I can only imagine the incentives that were offered to keep the airline there. Today, Southwest serves Chicago, Dallas, and Houston from Branson but it only has 4 flights holiday inn reservation a day in total, all using outsourced holiday inn reservation ground crew.
Apparently the combination of bigger 737s (AirTran used 717s on at least some flights) and the extremely low frequency was enough to do Southwest in. This is a market that s probably best served by ultra low cost carriers like Frontier on a seasonal, infrequent basis.
Jackson is unique in that it wasn t an AirTran market but actually joined the Southwest network back in 1997 with 8 daily flights to Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, and Orlando. Today, Jackson has lost half its service with only 4 flights holiday inn reservation a day to Chicago, Houston, and Orlando.
This is a huge blow for the already-suffering airport. Not only is Southwest responsible for a quarter of the service at the field, holiday inn reservation but it also employees 31 people. That in itself might have made the costs too high to continue the service. It s hard to run only 4 flights a day and have to pay a full complement of staff.
But Jackson is just not a big market with around 600,000 departing passengers a year. It came into Southwest s system at a time when it was pushing into smaller markets, before it decided holiday inn reservation that big business markets were the way forward.
I found it strange that Southwest even tried to make this former AirTran market work. After all, Southwest long ago decided that it wouldn t continue service to Sarasota, and that s a bigger holiday inn reservation market. holiday inn reservation Both suffer from the same problem of high seasonality.
This kind of seasonality kept Southwest out of Sarasota, but maybe Southwest was lured to Key West thanks to the lack of an alternate airport. (Sarasota is just an hour s drive south of Tampa whereas Key West is 3 hours southwest of high fare Miami or 3 and a half hours away from low fare Ft Lauderdale.)
Southwest is at least leaving these markets gracefully. It will continue to serve the cities with a full schedule through June 6, 2014. It isn t selling tickets for travel beyond that point yet, so all current bookings will be valid for travel.
What does this mean for other small cities in the Southwest network (the few that are left)? Well, Des Moines, Pensacola, and Portland holiday inn reservation (ME) only have 3 flights a day today, but Southwest apparently sees more opportunity there than in these other cities. holiday inn reservation Beyond that, there are a handful of cities with five daily flights Corpus Christi, Flint, Grand Rapids, Greenville/Spartanburg, Panama City, Richmond, and Wichita.
Will those all make it? So far, yes. But it will be interesting to see if Southwest holiday inn reservation can find a way to make these cities work better than the ones it has shed so far. Otherwise, they ll end up just like the rest.
The pullout of Key West is disappointing. When AirTran started service to Key West, it was the only major airline competition to Delta (Continental and American served EYW with commuter flights holiday inn reservation from Florida airports). As a result, Delta dramatically lowered its fares on the ATL-EYW route. However, EYW s short runway meant the 737-700 was the only viable large jet on the route. I do not think the 717 had the takeoff performance required, even for the short flight to Orlando. Delta had the advantage holiday inn reservation of putting the 737-700 on the route during peak periods, and the CRJ on the route during non-peak periods. AirTran did not, and Southwest does not, have that luxury.
Seems to be any airport/service holiday inn reservation can be axed anytime now a days. If the $$$ isn t there the smart airlines pull out and put their planes somewhere else. Makes sense for that airline, but not to the traveling public who may loose service or as was mentioned now have to pay more to travel on the last carriers in a market. But business is business and that s what must be done these days.
Well, we don t have a right to convenient or cheap air travel. The other option is to go back to the regulation days where we have what I m told is a more fair playing field, but everyone suffered as prices were higher.
We needed to go back to full regulation holiday inn reservation of airlines twenty years ago. Deregulation is a failure as seen by both the decline in the service level of the remaining airlines and the bankruptcy and elimination of a score of once well-regarded airlines. It is only a matter of time before we only have one major airline flying in the US if we don t re-regulate soon. We are down to three major airlines now with the demise of the old American Airlines (you can argue four with Southwest, also I know the American name lives on but the surviving company is the old US Airways). The higher fares of regulation are just the price we will have to pay for a safe and stable airline holiday inn reservation infrastructure.
I don t see how deregulation is a failure. One of the airlines born with deregulation is now the world s largest airline America West. The environment created post deregulation holiday inn reservation has created niche carriers that provide a service to the sectors of the industry that they serve jetBlue, Virgin America, Spirit, and Allegiant all come to mind.
The time of hot meals on fine china served by a stewardess died when Eastern and PanAm shut down. The industry now, I feel, is much better off. It allows those who want to pay more the option to fly with everything included in their tickets, and it also allows holiday inn reservation those who weren t able to fly in the past the opportunity holiday inn reservation to visit family they might not ever see because driving isn t an option.
The US airline infrastructure is much more stable holiday inn reservation today then it was under regulation. Airlines are now forced to operate as a profitable business. If you can t be profitable, you have to change the way you do business or go out of business.
If by profitable, you mean profitable holiday inn reservation for several consecutive quarters between episodes of near or actual bankruptcy, then yes, the deregulated airline industry is comprised of profitable businesses.
This does bring up an interesting, larger question though. WN has service to several other small Texas markets besides holiday inn reservation CRP, dating back to its legacy days as a Texas Express of sorts AMA, HRL, LBB, MAF, maybe ELP depending on how you define small . Several of those stations are puddle jumps for lack of a better term on the way to somewhere else, especially for routes where WN currently can t fly nonstop because of the Wright restrictions at DAL (i.e. flights from DAL-DEN sometimes stop at AMA or LBB on the way, and I think some LAS flights even go via MAF). Does this mean even more of these legacy routes are in danger, holiday inn reservation especially once the Wright restrictions disappear? Or do they remain the exception to the rule, given WN s considerable brand loyalty in the state?
MeanMeosh I would think that these Texas cities are likely to lose frequency at least. Some of these routes work because of all the Dallas traffic flowing through. Without that, you d think there would have to be fewer flights. I m not sure if any routes would disappear, however. I guess we ll find out in the next few months.
The rumor I ve seen is that CRP-HOU will move to CRP-DAL after Wright expires. CRP-HOU is only a 4 hour drive so they lose out to those people, but HOU has the connectivity which is why the flight has stayed there. Once DAL gets the same connectivity it makes sense to not compete with driving.
ELP This will take a hit. I see ELP-SAN and some ELP-LAS being reduced. holiday inn reservation Although it is much larger than the others and sees mainline on other carriers holiday inn reservation as well. AA s even got brand new A319 s on this route. Time will tell.
I ve heard rumblings holiday inn reservation for awhile that SW will drop RIC, since it was the hub model with Airtran. The planes seem full on the route, holiday inn reservation but the fares have gone up a lot since they took over the route. Delta must be happy, for sure!
SWA: A two-headed adolescent with an identity crisis? SWA began as a smart, LCC primarily in markets where they could steal a large share of traffic from legacy carriers with little or no competition by under cutting price. They standardized very well and offered basic transport, not fluff. When they finally won a market, holiday inn reservation they raised their prices. If they lost, they pulled out. Today, they want to be known as a smaller legacy carrier. They many not have two heads,, but they are trying to wear two hats; it confuses them and in some markets it hurts them. What began as a great LCC business holiday inn reservation plan is now so screwed up that even their marketing holiday inn reservation folks do not seem