Southwest Airlines has now been awarded a single operating certificate for itself and the Airtran brand as of Thursday of this week.  This means that Southwest can begin truly blending the operations by turning Airtran aircraft into SWA aircraft, moving crews into Southwest operations and operating SWA or Airtran aircraft on routes as they wish.

So far, Southwest gets a good report card on its integration efforts in that it has seen most labor groups come to a quick agreement on seniority integration and it has achieved this single certificate on time.  Smooth integrations yield the results expected from a merger and this would appear to be working in Southwest’s favor.

Going forward, we’ll see a steady transition with more and more routes being served in SWA colors and more crew and staff transitioning into SWA operations.  I would expect little, if any, drama at this point and that includes the SWA mechanics who threw their small temper tantrum but who have much to lose if they hold off too long and force the seniority integration into binding arbitration.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax