Originally Posted by
NimbusSurfer
Here's my guess...
LAX will be a new crew base. The city is investing $400 million in a complete renovation of Terminal 1. The existing US Air gates will be transferred making it an all SWA facility. They are also building an escalator bridge that will link Terminal 1 with the US Customs facility in Terminal 2, allowing for SWA international arrivals at LAX (Mexico, Central America, etc.). In addition, it has long been rumored that LAX would become an ETOPS maintenance and crew base for SWA to support Hawaii ops. I know there are a lot of guys on the West Coast and in SoCal that would love to see this happen.
LAX's Terminal 1 Getting a Makeover, Going All-Southwest - Makeovers - Curbed LA
As much as I would love to see an LAX crew base for all the people who already live down there....
Here are the kinks in the armour -
ETOPS - If and when that ever happens, an ETOPS mx base does not a crew base make. Additionally, OAK is closer (to HI), already has MX and a crew base, and has greater feed than LAX.
LA-HI - Trying to compete across the pond against every other airline using heavies (and 75's) out of LA would be dubious at best.
Geographical placement - You already have 3 crew bases within an hour of LAX.
Intl - I keep hearing about this connector to terminal 2 for customs. Unfortunately, I can never find anything official (you would think it would be big news), and the link you provided makes no metion of it.