Well, it
sorta works as a replacement. They can buy them, schedule them, put them on gates and sell tickets. They can then offer less room to the paying passengers. They can then bump pax and limit their bags. They can stop for gas, they can run the APU all the way to Hawaii and they can leave non revs behind. They can't take a full load to DEN in icing, can't carry a full load (east) out of Orange County, etc. etc.
Hell of a metric! "Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it" is a rather flimsy measure of success isn't it? After all, this is the same gang that brought us Shares, (including a whole slew of other IT failures - including nearly downing the entire fleet multiple times when Sabre/Dispatch functions crapped out), massively dorked up vacancy awards, put hundreds of guys in some based (doing nothing) while they cancel flights in others, etc etc etc.
Ford used to make an Edsel too.
Let's face it, the plane should have died a natural death 20 years ago. If not for SWA, Airbus would have crushed Boeing in narrow body sales. There's a reason that virtually all the US startups (JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit, Virgin) and dozens of other airlines worldwide have switched to the bus. (Insert chainsaw retort here)
Its the same fuselage cross section as the original 707. Look at the overhead and its 1967, look at the panel and its a triple. Look at the jump seat and its romper room.
