Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly has said recently that he believes Southwest will want to keep Airtran destinations such as Wichita, KS in all likelihood.  He also added the caveat that until they can see the viability of these smaller destinations for themselves, a solid committment can’t be made.  That evaluation won’t take place until Southwest officially merges with Airtran.

I think Southwest got a peak at what their world could look like when they did their due diligence on purchasing Frontier Airlines.   I think they saw the viability of operating smaller aircraft with reduced frequencies to some of these destinations and I think Southwest wants in on that action.  It wasn’t just Atlanta that Southwest wanted when they looked at Airtran. 

Airtran has made it kind of specialty of theirs to develop routes to what I would term third tier destinations.  Those destinations are places such as Wichita, Branson and Des Moines.  Airtran serves quite a few small destinations with regularity but not frequency.  Some with subsidies and some without. 

Take a look at these cities and you’ll see opportunity that fits neatly within the Southwest system. 

1. Key West, FL
2. Bloomington, IL
3. Moline, IL
4. Des Moines, IA
5. Wichita, KS
6. Lexington, KY
7. Portland, ME
8. Flint, MI
9. Grand Rapids, MI
10. Branson, MO
11. Omaha, NE
12. Atlantic City, NJ
13. Rochester, NY
14. White Plains, NY
15. Asheville, NC
16. Akron-Canton, OH
17. Allentown, PA
18. Harrisburg, PA
19. Knoxville, TN
20. Newport News/Williamsburg, VA
21. Charleston, WV

Airtran has built up quite the business at these airports and all of them can be served by Southwest focus cities.  This is why Southwest keeps saying that the 717 has a place in the fleet for some time to come.  It’s an aircraft that can efficiently serve such cities (as well as their 737-500s) to feed traffic to major cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Oklahoma City, Nashville and Milwaukee.

And serving such cities isn’t out of SWA’s experience.  Take a look at the third tier cities they serve:

1. Birmingham, AL
2. Little Rock, AR
3. Hartford, CT
4. Boise, ID
5. Louisville, KY
6. Jackson, MS
7. Omaha, NE
8. Manchester, NH
9. Albuquerque, NM
10. Albany, NY
11. Long Island, NY
12. Oklahoma City, OK
13. Tulsa, OK
14. Providence, RI
15. Greenville / Spartanburg, SC
16. Amarillo, TX
17. Corpus Christi, TX
18. El Paso, TX
19. Harlingen, TX
20. Lubbock, TX
21. Midland/Odessa, TX
22. Norfolk, VA

As much as SWA is concentrating on growth to larger, mainline cities, SWA still has a vested interest in serving those smaller third tier cities and towns.  Even more so today as they can feed that traffic to one of many focus cities and carry people onwards at a far better value than being offered by a legacy airline.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax