The Incredible shrinking ATL
Back in 2007-08 Airtran I think at its peek had 240 flights a day out of ATL. With the new schedule extension coming out, SWA will be down almost 125 flights a day. Cutting most International. Only International will be PUJ and CUN. That's almost half of the total flights gone. All I can say is wow. They are not going to even try to compete with DL.
This is from the AJC.
"Southwest-AirTran’s market share at Hartsfield-Jackson has shrunk from 16 percent to 11 percent, while Delta’s has increased from nearly 78 percent to nearly 83 percent over the last four years. Total passenger counts were down 1.1 percent in 2013, and are up 0.75 percent for the first half of this year."
"And while AirTran operated flights from Hartsfield-Jackson to six Caribbean destinations, Southwest as of January 2015 will operate only two: Cancun and Punta Cana."
"Earlier this year, a master plan update was delayed as planners scaled back traffic forecasts because of Southwest’s dismantling of AirTran’s hub. That is likely to contribute to reduced demand for more gates and concourses and delay the need for a sixth runway."
I understand that SWA like any other company is in it to make money. They have been profitable for decades. Their track record is second to none. On track to make the highest profit in the companies history. If it hurts the bottom line than they need to do what they got to do. I get that. Just some serious cutting. Just shocked how much has been cut.
My question is why have a domicile in ATL? SWA has probably more RON's in some other cities(LAX,SAN, BNA,TPA and FLL)than ATL now. Is it a possibility that SWA wil close ATL as a domicile? In our final "end of FL comm" that was given, they said no growth in ATL domicile prior to March of 2015. Now the March schedule is out all the way through April, it looks like no growth at all for ATL. Wonder if ATL domicile is on it's way out.