Southwest Airlines CEO talks plans, growth for Las Vegas. -800's and International

[DieselDragRacer]

http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/aug/08/southwest-airlines-ceo-talks-vegas/

 

[General Lee]

These three paragraphs are interesting:



Southwest has announced plans to acquire larger Boeing 737-800 jets. Do you expect those jets to be used on Las Vegas routes?

Absolutely. Las Vegas, especially when you think about the East Coast or if we ever serve Hawaii or Alaska or Mexico—those clear long-distance markets—that’s what the 800 is best suited for. Again, with Las Vegas being a top US destination, we’ll certainly be putting 800s into service in Las Vegas.


Ever think about long-haul jumbo jets to compete for international routes or more nonstops?

I think that’s premature. The short answer is nothing beyond very casual thoughts. We’ve got a lot of work to do over the next five years with bringing on the 800, integrating AirTran, we’re early in our all-new Rapid Rewards (loyalty program) implementation and we want to be sure that we get it fully up and running and meeting customers’ needs, and then we’ll also be working on adding international capabilities to our current reservation system as a first step toward ultimately replacing our current reservation system. So that’s a lot to do and those will be our priorities. If you’re thinking about in a decade or the next 20 years, will we look at bigger airplanes and more international service? Perhaps. But we want to take first things first. We have a tremendous number of opportunities to grow our fleet with just the things that I’ve indicated, so we’ve got our work cut out for us for quite some time.


Mexican air carrier Volaris, a partner of yours, began flying to McCarran this spring. Do you anticipate more connecting flights based on Volaris’ schedule?

I don’t know. They have a different business model than we do. There are a lot of similarities, of course, with their friendliness and their low fares and their efficiency. But they’re primarily an intra-Mexican carrier and they just offer different trans-border flight times, so a lot of it will depend on whether they want to schedule their flights more in the heart of the operating day that will connect into Southwest flights. It’s mostly dependent on their schedule and their scheduling decisions as opposed to Southwest. We’d welcome more flights and we’d welcome more flights connecting with us, but whether that’s what they plan to do, I can’t say.



I thought you guys were going to have Hawaii flights next year? How about getting rid of that INTL codeshare with Volaris? Sure, we have plenty of code-share partners, but it looks like you have at least ONE for awhile longer..... And no mention of Europe, or anything long distance? Looks like more LBB in your collective futures, along with ISP, MAF, HRL, and now Tunica and Bloomington. Good for you guys! HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY!



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Fubijaakr]

I thought you guys were going to have Hawaii flights next year? How about getting rid of that INTL codeshare with Volaris?

Guess what? It ain't going to happen. First, they have to fly the -800 for awhile. Then they have to get ETOPS certification. And the biggest hurdle to that is not pilots or equipment...its maintenance.

SWA has a few issues in that department.

Next year. Nope.

 

[GuppyWN]

2013 is what we were told several months ago for just the reasons Hater said. Next year is rumored to be Alaska.

Gup

 

[Fubijaakr]

2013 is what we were told several months ago for just the reasons Hater said. Next year is rumored to be Alaska.

I'm down with that. Hope you're down with DoH.

 

[redflyer65]

We’d welcome more flights and we’d welcome more flights connecting with us, but whether that’s what they plan to do, I can’t say.





Bye Bye---General Lee

General,

You are right, very interesting...it sounds like he is LESS impressed with the Volaris codeshare than when it started.

Oh, and you guys have a TON of codeshare. Do all the regionals count too? We don't have that problem, no thanks to DALPA.

RF

 

[anewunion]

Being the big dog in Las Vegas is a terrible business plan. It may be the lowest yielding fare in the world.

Jamming your jets up with a bunch of 67$ tickets when you could be making money somewhere else is a terrible idea.

The only ticket lower then LAS is MCO, and we already know who owns that..

Good Luck against AAY.

 

[SKC]

2013 is what we were told several months ago for just the reasons Hater said. Next year is rumored to be Alaska.

Gup

Since General is on ignore, I'm assuming the question was regarding starting Hawaii.

As of now, proving runs are planned to begin 3Q12 and sched service at the end of 12 or 1Q13.

 

[HalinTexas]

They may be flying the -800, may be expanding in LAS, may be going to HI in the mid to long term, but they ain't flyin' that -800 from LAS to HI. Ain't gonna happen.

 

[Ameriagle]

Being the big dog in Las Vegas is a terrible business plan. It may be the lowest yielding fare in the world.

Jamming your jets up with a bunch of 67$ tickets when you could be making money somewhere else is a terrible idea.

The only ticket lower then LAS is MCO, and we already know who owns that..

Good Luck against AAY.

Whatever it is, it won't be against AAY! Currently no route overlap and I wouldn't expect that to change anytime soon.