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Southwest Grows More Midway Monstrous

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vc10

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 7, 2003
Posts
377
http://enplaned.blogspot.com/2005/11/southwest-grows-more-midway-monstrous.html

Breaking news in the ATA bankruptcy. According to the Chicago Tribune, Southwest is to pick up four more gates at Chicago Midway airport (MDW). ATA would give another three gates back to the city, keeping only one (planned total ATA MDW departures would be 24, ATA would use city-controlled gates as well as the one it would lease full-time).

This will take Southwest up to 29 gates total at MDW. A reasonable benchmark for Southwest departures/gate is 10/day. Assuming Southwest eventually builds to this level, 290 departures/day would make MDW its largest station by far (Las Vegas is currently somewhere around the 200 departure/day level for Southwest).

It also a long-term problem for United and American at Chicago O'Hare (ORD) (though the cessation of ruinous competition between Southwest and ATA has been a real benefit in the last year). The greater the number of frequencies and destinations that Southwest can offer from MDW, the more competitive Southwest and MDW become to the business traveler.

It's also advances the day Southwest moves deeper into Northwest's territory. Minneapolis (MSP) is an obvious business destination from MDW. Chicago-Minneapolis is a significant business route, and one that Southwest is likely to want to fly to offer a full portfolio from MDW. Southwest is now so strong in some markets that it can use that strength to break into legacy carrier hubs that were traditionally considered off-limits. Southwest's recent entry into Denver (DEN) is an example of that, as it leveraged off strength in Phoenix (PHX), Las Vegas (LAS) and MDW. A future entry into MSP would be likely done in much the same way.
 
MSP.... next, I called it a few weeks ago!
 
SWA/FO said:
MSP.... next, I called it a few weeks ago!

Everyone is welcomed at MSP. The new Humphrey terminal is nice and open with lots of empty gates. Midwest started going there this last summer and flights are full. Started with 3 a day and now up to 5.
 
Chuck Yogourt said:
Everyone is welcomed at MSP. The new Humphrey terminal is nice and open with lots of empty gates. Midwest started going there this last summer and flights are full. Started with 3 a day and now up to 5.


Kissin' up to the SWA guys might be a good career move for ya, Chuckie, since you already burned your bridges at AirTran . . . . . not too many options left for a dust-farting dinosaur like yourself, but if you can shed the orthopedic gym shoes for a day and put on a fresh Depends, maybe they'll take sympathy on ya, but I'm pretty sure your personality will burn you anyway.

Might as well save those 737 type-rating dollars and stock up on the bulk cat food at Sam's club.
 
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Costco rules!
 
SWA FO.SW going into MSP was called a long time ago.Basically,everywhere that ATA has/will pullout of .The crews at ATA were stunned that they pulled out of MSP.Planes at 11pm full,the baggage area jammed.NW quietly tripled their MSP-MDW fares the day after ATAs announcement.Within days AirTran announced MDW-MSP(and EWR,BOS).
 
The real shocker was pulling out of SJU. We used to fill up L10's in and out of there.
 
Man.... Its gonna be a slug fest.... Get ready everyone. We got business class, XM, and reliable, friendly service over at AirTran. I cant believe ATA pulled out... must be a backroom deal for SWA ??

When is Jet Blue coming to MSP ? Thats next.
 
HalinTexas said:
The real shocker was pulling out of SJU. We used to fill up L10's in and out of there.


HT:
Got any idea what the BE load factor was to either SJU or MSP? Can't see any company pulling out of markets that are making decent money. If break even LF gets close to or over 100%, either the costs are too high or the prices aren't high enough to cover the costs (ie. stiff NWA competition in the case of MSP)...
 
Here's the difference between ATA and everyone else: We don't advertise. Mgt. says otherwise, but here's some evidence. (1) A week ago, Sunday, I was working on my back porch with the radio tuned to the Cowboy game. I heard no less than 3 Airtran commercials on the radio in Dallas. (2) JetBlue gets tons of free press through Soros' connections and being HQ'd in NYC. No need for marketing. (3) My wife and I watch Fox and Friends in the AM. We'll see 2 or three UAL cartoon commercials in that hour or hour and a half. UAL's been in BK for 3+ years. (4) Five years ago when we were running service from SJU to JFK and MCO (with L10's), two a day to MCO, FLL, MDW we were full. We ran limited spanish language spots in the MIA area. Word spread quickly through the PR community on the mainland. Gas was cheap then, on the order of $0.80/gal for Jet A. When the spots stopped, loads diminished. We've slowly pulled out of SJU for a year, but the Carib. is still an untapped market for LCC's, hence the advancement of JetBlue, Spirit, and Airtran.

MSP: Lack of marketing is part of the problem. The last 12 months we've just been riding coat-tails of SWA, military charters (saved our a$$es again), and Pleasant Hawaiian (going away in Jan.). ATA had 6 AM departures, 7 days per week, from MDW. It was an originating flight. We never hauled more than 100 people, out of 160 or 175 seats, on most of those days. How good is that asset managment? We had a name for ourselves, along with Sun Country, in MSP. We had been doing charters out of there for years and years. NWA is tough, no doubt about it; there is some "home town company" loyalty to fight as well. But, there's always a market for the rebel iconoclasts that don't want to pay what NWA charges. Anyone remember their melt-down in MSP and DTW around New Year's in '98-'99? Man, that was ugly.

ATA's marketing philosophy is, "build it and they will come." Always has been.

Our management philosophy is "we can't do that. We've never done that before."

Our union is complicit in the above.

There is no doubt in my mind that charging less than $100 for a ticket is stupidity in itself. Fares in every market we've pulled out of have gone up. When we were trying to tap the SFO-EWR (NYC) market, we had our a$$es handed to us by CAL, with some help from AMR. We didn't advertise, we just brought out the B757-300's with $100 fares. The PIE-LAS and PIE-LAX flight? I don't want to talk about it, but the PIE-LGA flights were starting to pick up right before we dropped it. USA3000 and Airtran have moved into that market as well.

Airtran hasn't said how many of the gates they will take once we've moved out of the A gates in MDW, but there will be four available sometime in Jan. SWA is taking four of ours right now. I don't think it will be a blood bath. I think both SWA and Airtran will make money in MDW. There might be other changes in store for MDW. I think NWA largely exists there because of our flights to MSP and SWA's to DET. AMR exists in MDW because of our DFW and LGA flights; likewise with CAL and EWR. These may become more and more turned over to their regional (small jet) affiliates if they don't pull out all together.

Fuel prices being the accelerator, BK courts the catalyst, and increasing passenger traffic the carrot the next year our so is going to be a little more than just "interesting."
 
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Crazy, great news for ticket prices. I hope MSP comes down a bit, I'm sick of flying NWA there all the freaking time.
 

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