Southwest wanted to buy Frontier cause end of the day it would have been cheaper to buy them and absorb then drive them out of business. Now that the option to aquire them is off the table you will see the full force of Southwest on Frontier airlines. Not to mention you will have Southwest and Airtran out of MKE doing battle with each other on ticket prices. Anyone ever really take a look at the Baltimore hub that used to exist for alot of airlines? I mean in actual terms of capacity and daily flights to different destinations? I will give you an example US Airways, United, etc. Why did these carriers actually reduce their operations to the point now its just a city they serve? The reason Southwest and Airtran destroyed the viability of the hub to make money for the other airlines. When those two low cost carriers arrive in a hub to price each other out of routes usually it kills other airlines in the crossfire. Southwest is like the plague and Airtran is like a cancer good luck Republic and Frontier.