swa from aex to mhk today

[cobalt]

somewhere in the midst of my last hour of mindless internet surfing, i just discovered that southwest has had 4 flights from alexandria, la (aex) to manhattan, kansas in the past 15 hours or so. (and miami air has had one as well). just curious if anyone knows why.... the impending doom of the hurricane and/or i think there is a lot of military in/around alex. so those are the top two things that come to my mind. football charter would have been my guess, but k-state not playing till next week, and 5 flights would be excessive.

 

[wms]

Maybe military evacuation. We used to use SWA on active duty.

 

[FlyBoeingJets]

Must be military charter. Those airports are near big army posts.

 

[737tanker]

Alexandria, LA is close to Ft Polk and and Manhattan, KS is close to Ft Riley. It sounds like that a unit from Ft Riley was at Ft Polk (where the Army has their Joint Readiness Training Center). So either they finished their training or they are being sent back to avoid Katrina.

 

[kelbill]

AEX is a big destination for SWA charters. I've taken one there, and seen multiple ones going there on other dates. But I doubt the military moves quick enough for this to have anything to do with hurevac of troops. I'm an ex-airlift guy so that wasn't meant as a slam, but rather the facts of bureaucracy.