Southwest Airlines will initiate service to Richmond (VA), Memphis (TN) and Pensacola (FL) on November 3 and these are the last 3 stations Southwest needs to initiate service to Airtran only stations.

All three of these cities are good for airlines and they certainly were good for Airtran but I do sense something here that I think will get ignored by the new leadership team at Southwest.

Success at these cities will not depend entirely on business travelers.  It won’t be possible to make these cities continued successes without paying attention to those who brung ya to this dance.

That would be the non-business traveler.  Actually, it’s the “not corporate” travelers who make or break airlines in those cities.  The entrepreneurs who don’t think it funny to pay exorbitant business fares to make their trips.  These entrepreneurs will either get the ticket they need at the price they need to pay for they won’t go.  They look an awful lot like leisure travelers but they aren’t quite.  They’re not buying the SWA “Wanna Get Away” fares but they’re also not tolerant of paying any fare necessary.

They are shoppers and they discriminate and they do not possess loyalty to an airline because of a points program.

And ignoring these consumers at these kinds of stations will result in once successful Airtran stations becoming failures under the Southwest model of “We’re not the cheapest anymore!”

Filed under: Airline News by ajax
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