Full of LUV
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2002
- Posts
- 1,021
Wave,
I don't know what political will you refer too except to get the DCA/LGA slot swap done without benefiting SWA, but to have SWA and Airtran in ATL would have been more of a disaster for DAL than what has happened. In that case you would have had to LCC's slugging it out in your hub with unreasonably low airfares to any destination they compete on. Now, SWA can be practical in it's pricing, I don't believe they want to take all of DAL's business, just capture what AAI had and expand on it with the additional destinations.
The reference to AA in the 90's was to address the people asking why DAL hadn't "squeezed out" AAI earlier, and at first I believe it was to have another carrier instead of SWA at their hub. Had DAL made it a priority and squeezed out AAI (assuming it could be done a decade ago) that would have just left a gaping hole for SWA or some other LCC to fill.
AAI has grown to a size that it probably makes much less difference than a decade ago. In fact as I said, SWA's costs are probably higher than AAI's.
Who knows, many on here think that SWA is going to "eat DAL's lunch" and "push them out of ATL". I don't even believe that is in SWA's interest, even though their pilots will think so. All I can say is the competition you know is sometimes better than the alternative. All you need is an upstart skybus or VA well funded upstart with very low overhead to cause all kinds of headaches.
LUV
