Southwest, La Guardia and Codesharing
November 19, 2008 on 11:02 am | In Airline News, Airline Service, Airports | No CommentsIf Southwest gains those ATA slots and they do fly them all in and out of La Guardia, this does send an interesting message to those employees who are presently upset over the announcements of codeshares with both WestJet and Volaris.
You see, the big argument made for those codeshares was that it allowed Southwest to concentrate on its business model but enjoy the expanded business that those two airlines offered to Canada and Mexico. It was an argument about focus and direction with the Southwest business model. The employees, some of them at least and most important the pilots, have argued that with near zero growth planned for Southwest, these are routes (the international routes) that Southwest could fly with their own people and metal.
It’s an argument that I can see some truth in. The flying remains a natural for Southwest. After all, flying to either Canada or Mexico is not flying overseas. Mostly it is flying to cities across a border in a manner that is quite consistent with the existing model. While neither country would necessarily permit Southwest to build a network inside their country, there are plenty of provisions already in existence to fly to destinations in both countries.
Southwest is perfectly capable of operating a website or websites that serve those countries as well. Labor costs can’t be an issue because, frankly, they could literally outsource those functions to their two new codeshare partners. WestJet knows how to turnaround a 737 and while Volaris owns A320 aircraft, they also know how to turnaround an airplane.
Flying to either country does not require ETOPS aircraft and it doesn’t even necessarily mean overnighting aircraft and/or flight crew in either country. Flights to either country can be “turns” that see no aircraft left overnight. However, even if you did want to overnight staff in those countries, it isn’t logistically difficult. Hotels are in abundance and all your staff need are passports. Language really isn’t a problem either. Oddly enough, Southwest flight crew speak English, a perfectly acceptable language for Canada, and I’ll bet that Southwest has plenty of crew capable of speaking Spanish already.
Now La Guardia Airport does present some challenges that are contrary to the Southwest model. It is a congested, expensive, weather affected airport with high labor costs and high costs to overnight aircraft. I would wager that it is quite possibly MORE difficult to operate into and out of La Guardia than, say, Vancouver or Toronto or Monterrey or Gaudalajara.
It also puts Southwest into one of the most competitive markets in the United States and while it does give them access to the business traveler, it does so in a major market where business travelers often expect and even demand creature comforts that Southwest doesn’t offer. If you have the chance to fly 7 round trips to NYC, what cities do you connect NYC to? This is mere speculation but I would guess that flights to Chicago’s Midway Airport are a given. Possibly a flight to either Baltimore or Orlando or Houston or even Philadelphia. I would actually bet heavily on Chicago, Baltimore, Orlando and Houston. But even if it was Chicago only, you have, at best, 7 frequencies. On that route, you would probably need a minimum of 7 frequencies.
There is something that is unrevealed in this plan. Certainly Southwest could boost frequencies by obtaining more slots in the future. Maybe. But that is historically difficult in a slot controlled airport and a market that rarely sees significant contraction in flight quantities. It is even more difficult when you are entering a market that major legacy airlines will defend to the death. No one has any incentive to cooperate with Southwest in making gate space or other facilities available.
