Southwest is doing something interesting with Airtran.  They are not only absorbing the airline, they’re using it as a proxy for getting heavily involved with international flying to the markets that should be very interesting to Southwest in the first place. 

The latest announcements are for routes to Cancun from Denver and Austin on Airtran equipment.  The knowledge base is there for flights to Mexico and the Caribbean from Airtran staff and Southwest has the strong bases in cities that Airtran has hardly flown to.  This is a powerful combination and it should work very, very well for Southwest.

It does bring to my mind a few questions.  Does this mean Southwest will adopt Airtrans’ reservations system?  Or does it mean that it is finally working hard to build its infrastracture for a newer, better reservations system?  Southwest needs this more than it needs an early delivery of the 737MAX.

I also wonder if Southwest won’t begin entering into Canada in the next two years.  There are a lot of very expensive routes to Canadian cities that could be very ripe for Southwest to enter into.   Chicago to Toronto comes to mind as just one excellent route (Currently, the best prices are WestJet codeshares on American Eagle and that tells the whole story right there.)

So far, I like how Southwest is using their acquisition for international travel and it may well end up being one of the truly great benefits to come from the merger.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax