Originally Posted by
REF 5
The other part of the equation that doesn’t get talked about here is ALK. They will rationalize the fleet and the inter island flying. Those 717’s will get replaced. Most likely it will be a larger gauge airplane. Which will create an excess of capacity without some frequency adjustments. Max 7 will certainly do some flying over there for sure and help rationalize the supply/demand problem. The inter island is a very small footprint of ASM’s for SWA. What would be interesting is if ALK did regional flying between the islands. I don’t know If there is a scope issue with that plus cargo restrictions that would come with flying a smaller airplane. That would change the calculus for SWA.
We already allow inter-island scope relief. I’d assume ALK could have Horizon or SKW operate those routes with the 175. We could do that also. Neither airline has pulled that lever.
If we ever do west Pacific flying (could do islands further west with the Max like UAL does out of Guam) I’d think we’d need a mx base there…possibly even a small crew base for rsv coverage.