SWA wants to fly from HOU to MEX and SouthAmerica

[redflyer65]

Immediate lose of 10,000 jobs if you believe them.

 

[Flopgut]

Sugar coat the facts??? We all are still waiting for this agreement you spoke of you know...the one were you said all international flying was to be done out of iah. Sugar coating flop your just plain out lying.

Show us this bs agreement. That's right you can't

Says right in the article, it was a gentlemen's agreement... Yeah, sure, not an air tight deal. But a lot of things in this country have been done on a handshake. It wasn't until the first snake-oil type discounter came along that those deals fell apart. Btw: I defy you to find a better partner to a municipality that SWA has ever been than CAL was to Houston. Even in Dallas, you've not done as much. You're like Walmart. You make more things suck than you make good.

I'm interested in the city council meeting on the 8th. We may learn there was a more substantial agreement than has been revealed so far. Everything that is out there right now was either done by, or for SWA. The UCAL side has not been heard.

 

[redflyer65]

Looking at the comments under the articles, there will be plenty of regular people from Houston there to pull for SW. It appears UCAL has pissed off alot of Houstonians for many years. Yea, I'd say you've "done something for them!"

 

[Flopgut]

Feel free to refute the writer.
"It has brazenly asked Houston’s airport authority to pay nearly $100 million to upgrade Hobby to receive international flights."
Poor LUV. It's tough to be the little guy fighting big bullies.

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/17/united-southwest-houston/?source=yahoo_quote

Man that is one hell of an interesting article. Why did we not call it Continental and stay in Houston?! The sum total of what United brought to this merger is not worth what we might stand to lose...

 

[Flopgut]

deleted....

 

[humveedriver]

I hope this bites United in the ass. After no luck with Midway gates and no luck with Midwest. AirTran said screw and went into MKE on their own. The city was glad to have us. It wouldn't hurt my feelings at all to see SAT become the next international gateway to L. America from TX. It would be a great pilot base for SWA too.

 

[IAHERJ]

This is what gets me. "Free Hobby". Now let's take a look at the timeline here. After 9/11, SWA expanded at a rapid pace taking advantage of the plights AA/UAL/CAL/DAL/NWA/US/MEH/ATA all had. Employees were giddy with the rapid expansion that came at the expense of employees the airlines mentioned above. SWA was profitable and bragged about their lower cost structure and single fleet airline serving cities in the lower 48 only at non congested airports. Fast forward to 2010/2011. SWA demands slots at DCA/LGA/EWR. They want to fly into SFO and BOS and now they want to fly internationally from Hobby Field as of when, February? To have a campaign to "FREE HOBBY" is a little much. What are we freeing Hobby from? No airline has requested customs support to fly from Hobby abroad since IAH opened in the early 1970's. It was agreed that IAH would be the international airport and every carrier agreed to this 40 years ago. Now SWA wants to fly internationally as it sees a bleak future without a business plan change and voila, we need to "FREE HOBBY". We do not need to free Hobby. The Joe the Plumbers who have been duped into believing that SWA has the lowest fares(another SWA marketing stroke of genius) of course are going to blog away on the Houston Chronicle website as they are all sharing a brain kept at Hooters during the weekdays and the nearest drag strip on the weekends.

We live in a free market so SWA has every right to ask for support for an international terminal etc. but to decide to fly internationally and make the request a month prior to a marketing campaign to "FREE HOBBY" is a bit dramatic.

My 2 cents

 

[redflyer65]

Just like UCAL's defense is beyond dramatic. An immmediate loss of 10,000 jobs. The horror!!

Give me a break. It's business. All the expansion you talk about from the other carriers? Guess what, that's business too. If it doesn't go through, you know both Austin and San Antonio will blow up with international flights....and we'll feed them from Houston and Dallas.

 

[IAHERJ]

Just like UCAL's defense is beyond dramatic. An immmediate loss of 10,000 jobs. The horror!!

Give me a break. It's business. All the expansion you talk about from the other carriers? Guess what, that's business too. If it doesn't go through, you know both Austin and San Antonio will blow up with international flights....and we'll feed them from Houston and Dallas.

Yes, because "International" is the new game for SWA. All the bump your stock got in the mid 2000's as "Southwest, the domestic carrier has no exposure to the drop off in international air travel due to SARS/Iraq war/Japan nuclear accident etc.". "Southwest, which has not interest in serving the congested airports in the Northeast". I could go on but you get the picture. We have absolutely got to "FREE HOBBY" right now! Sounds like the Tea Party folks who all have little copies of The Constitution that all of a sudden needs to be to be adhered to fundamentally.

 

[PCL_128]

IAHERJ, I get your point. Yes, it is a little overdramatic to say "free Hobby," but this is politics and PR, so dramatics sometimes serve a purpose. Just like the absolutely asinine assertions that your company is making about how many UAL jobs would be lost, and how many flights UAL would have to stop running in IAH. We all know that that is a bunch of BS. But I don't begrudge them for it, because they're just playing the game.

What this really comes down to is capitalism. Either you believe in an unfettered free market, or you don't. Artificial restrictions like trying to force a carrier to operate out of one airport instead of another is not a free market.

 

[IAHERJ]

IAHERJ, I get your point. Yes, it is a little overdramatic to say "free Hobby," but this is politics and PR, so dramatics sometimes serve a purpose. Just like the absolutely asinine assertions that your company is making about how many UAL jobs would be lost, and how many flights UAL would have to stop running in IAH. We all know that that is a bunch of BS. But I don't begrudge them for it, because they're just playing the game.

What this really comes down to is capitalism. Either you believe in an unfettered free market, or you don't. Artificial restrictions like trying to force a carrier to operate out of one airport instead of another is not a free market.

Not a free market but you have to admit it has been a very common practice in this industry since deregulation. One can argue that the airline industry is the most regulated deregulated industry there is. Every other airline has played by these rules of the road except SWA, who seems to have a sense of entitlement, fueled by a marketing department that rallies the great unwashed to further its cause.

I hope we fight it out. If United isn't tanked by the UALALPA efforts to shut the airline down, I'd wager United could hold its own in the Central America/Mexican markets and be very secure in the South American markets. I guess our merger integration issues were probably part of SWA's decision to choose Houston as its focal point of international expansion. Hit us while we are down....

 

[redflyer65]

Yes, because "International" is the new game for SWA. All the bump your stock got in the mid 2000's as "Southwest, the domestic carrier has no exposure to the drop off in international air travel due to SARS/Iraq war/Japan nuclear accident etc.". "Southwest, which has not interest in serving the congested airports in the Northeast". I could go on but you get the picture. We have absolutely got to "FREE HOBBY" right now! Sounds like the Tea Party folks who all have little copies of The Constitution that all of a sudden needs to be to be adhered to fundamentally.

So the whole point of your post is that your angry that Southwest wants to grow into international flying? (like anyone is shocked by that) They know the risk just like all the other carriers that already do it. If our stock price goes up because we bust out the international, then so be it. If it drops because another outburst of SARS then it is what it is.

Free Hobby is just a rally cry to get behind the effort, nothing more nothing less. Just as I would expect UCAL to do the same. If they didn't, something is really wrong at the GO in Chicago.

 

[PCL_128]

Not a free market but you have to admit it has been a very common practice in this industry since deregulation.

I don't know if I'd go that far, but yes, there are certainly other examples of artificial restrictions on the market. The question is, is that a good thing? I would argue that it's not. The market should either be free, or it shouldn't. I'd personally prefer a re-regulated market, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, so if it's going to be deregulated, then make it truly deregulated. Instead, the government got rid of all the good elements of regulation (stability, service to smaller markets, competing based on service rather than just price, etc.), while keeping the bad parts, like what we're seeing in IAH/HOU and the Wright Amendment. Either let the market do its job, or bring back the CAB.

Every other airline has played by these rules of the road except SWA, who seems to have a sense of entitlement, fueled by a marketing department that rallies the great unwashed to further its cause.

The other airlines "play by these rules" because the rules were custom tailored for their business model. As waveflyer points out, IAH is perfect for your business model. It isn't for ours. We aren't flying widebodies to FRA, we're flying 737s to CUN. Thinking that we should have access to a free market isn't a sense of "entitlement," it's just common sense.

 

[canyonblue]

Every other airline has played by these rules of the road except SWA, who seems to have a sense of entitlement, fueled by a marketing department that rallies the great unwashed to further its cause.

We are also the only airline that has been around since deregulation that hasn't filed bankruptcy, and some have filed more than once. You are right, not everybody has played by the rules, most have used bankruptcy as some sort of liabilities vanishing act.

 

[IAHERJ]

Agreed. I think it is SWA's marketing campaign that gets under my skin more than the argument you are making. I worked for AirTran for 3 years. I wish nothing but the best for you and the AirTran guys. Never applied nor wanted to work for SWA but their pilots used to be a fun group. Their arrogance recently(behind computer keyboards I should add) has turned off many a good guy that used to enjoy opening up their js to a SWA pilot. I hope my company can compete going forward. The sad thing is that it is out of my hands.

Should have quoted PCL as I was responding to his post, not CanyonBlue guy who helps make my argument...