SWA - MDW Expansion / 737-800's

[ATA73Pilot]

DALLAS, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Southwest Airlines (LUV.N: Quote, Profile, Research) plans to step up operations in Chicago due to the bankruptcy of low-cost rival ATA Airlines and may also bid on some of the troubled carrier's assets, Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly said on Thursday.

Kelly said Southwest will start adding new flights at Chicago's Midway airport beginning in the first quarter of 2005 and may also add gates.

He also said the carrier is looking at bidding on Boeing (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 737-800 planes in ATA's fleet. Those aircraft would be reconfigured and would have about 40 more seats than the typical 737 flown by Southwest.

"There is no desire on our part to stand still in Chicago," Kelly told reporters.

ATA's parent, Indianapolis-based ATA Holdings Corp. (ATAH.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , sought bankruptcy protection on Tuesday. It is the largest carrier at Midway.

AirTran Airways (AAI.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has already agreed to pay $87.5 million for all 14 ATA gates in Chicago and certain slots in New York and Washington.
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[Jim Smyth]

I obviously dont know how this is going to shake out in the end but I can speak from some former experience when this same type of senerio played out for me in 1991. I used to work for Midway Airlines until they went out of business in November of 1991. ( Very rude time in my life!)


Southwest and Northwest were in a bidding war for the gates at Midway (look familiar) and at the last minute Northwest pulled out ceasing our operations almost overnite. I dont blame Northwest for doing this because they werent very finacially sound at the time and the higher ups at Midway Ailrines seemed to have overstated some very important facts during the proposed buyout/merger. Most of the employees at that time favored Northwest over Southwest because they were going to take all of the Midway employees and Southwest was only going to give preferential interviews to the Midway folks and pick who they wanted. Well in the end Northwest pulled out and Southwest took over the gates and still gave Midway employees preferential interviewing status. They hired "A LOT" of Midway folks that were happy to get a job and were gratefull to be employed again. Myself included! I am sure that however it shakes out that the ATA folks will have a chance with getting on board with us at SWA. I know some of the management folks with us and they have always held ATA in high reguard.