Interesting rumor, but I'd be pretty surprised to see it happen. First of all, we never were scheduled to retire all the -200's this year -- that process will last a couple of years. On one of the web sites (either SWA internal or SWAPA -- don't think it's public) there is a list by tail # of when each jet will retire. It's based on when each one comes due for its next heavy mx check (i.e. big $). Fly it right up until it is due the big overhaul, then park it in the desert. I doubt that there ever was enough $ to be had from selling a timed-out old jet to get figured into the calculation... the jets have been depreciated to about zero a long time ago.
As far as keeping them around to do the Texas 2-step... they're cheap to operate because they're paid for, but they're gas hogs in a pretty big way. By the time you pay the cost of the mx check & the "remod cockpits," you could probably get a used -300 from somebody, but that isn't the plan at SWA either.
I've heard a couple of opinions lately that UAL may not be with us in a few months; if that happens, my guess is that SWA will see a significant "uptick" in its aircraft acquisition plans... we're making money, but not a lot at the moment, since there are fundamentally too many seats chasing too few pax right now. If a Chapter 7 BK eliminates a big chunk of those seats, the fares might get back to a level that allows some airlines to break even, and allows SWA to do significantly better than that.
Interesting time to be alive...
Snoopy
