>>My position is that SWA will have experienced the majority of its currently planned growth within the next few years.<<
Your position is wrong. It has no basis on fact or reality.
SWA is hammering Boeing to build a next next generation 737. Since the 737 is the world's most popular aircraft and SWA is Boeing's biggest and most financially secure customer, such replacement aircraft is pretty much a given. As soon as that happens SWA will fill the order book. SWA still has hundreds of aircraft on the books already.
SWA's business plan is to average 5-10% growth a year ad-infinititum. There will be peaks and valley's but they will average out over the years.
SWA used to be strictly short haul. The other airlines forced SWA into the long haul market with the change of the passenger tax rules. Long haul has been phenomonally successful for SWA and it is a market in which SWA is just scratching the surface. Less than half of SWA's current cities are what they call "fully developed". Every new city has 50 or so dots to connect and that takes years. One marketing person told an upgrade class that every new aircraft coming online for the next two years could go just to Denver and the airline would do fine. He also said that there are currently over 60 cities that are actively petitioning and bidding incentives for service by SWA.
Last edited by Widow's Son; 08-30-2006 at 08:40 AM.