I agree we need to charge more, but how much? You really can only do a few dollars at a time and then wait to see if all the others UAL, UsAir, Alegiant, Alaska, American, Air Tran, Continental, Jetblue, Frontier, Midwest Express, Spirit, Southwest match.

Something tells me that last one won't and they'll jump all over anyone else who does and eventually we'll have to capitulate. But for some damn reason SWA gets to escape blame from within the pilot ranks for destroying the industry because their pilots, as of right now, are paid well. We blame the regional pilots for taking jobs with whipsawed regionals that the mainline pilots allowed to fly replacement jets but not SWA pilots who work for an airline who pokes our employer in the eye, cuts corners, offers nothing and gets away with it because they pay $40 more per hour for 737 CA then we do as of right now.

I think we need to ramp up flying out of BHM, BWI, STL and other places and do it with direct flights and go toe to toe with SWA.


Southwest Airlines forces airfares to drop
Updated: 01/22/2010 8:09 PM KSTP.com
By: Katie Lynn Crandall

Southwest Airlines has only been at MSP for about 10 months, but has already changed the market.

Airfares have been dropping since Southwest moved to the Twin Cities.

"It's not as dramatic as we expected," said travel expert Terry Trippler, "but Southwest didn't come here hitting four or five cities right away."

Southwest currently flies to three cities from MSP. The cost for one way flights to Denver dropped almost 20 percent. The fare one way to Chicago went down 29 percent, while airfare to St. Louis decreased 63 percent.

Passenger Dave Crosby from Indianapolis said he flies Southwest because, "Price is right and service is fantastic."

Chicago passenger, Jolene Coggan, agreed, "Their flights seem to be the cheapest flights."

The airline carried about half a million passengers last year. The Metropolitan Airports Commission reported Southwest now ranks as the number two carrier behind Delta-Northwest.