Yeah my bad, I read wrong. Lol…

I appreciate the sentiment. I agree with all you said, expect I do believe Delta, once given the gates, will make life very hard for WN in AUS due to the advantages I listed above. Until then, as you mentioned, WN is the clear winner and not much can be done until then. I do expect Delta to make incremental adds and up-gauge until B arrives and am happy to watch us grow there with the 10 year commitment now signed.

I just find it somewhat surprising that WN is going all in on a 3rd TX hub/focus city. It seems like there'd be a fair amount of redundancies when you factor in their total TX presence. Not saying they'd ever bail on AUS entirely since the AUS/SAT corridor seems to be booming, but maybe they plan to draw down a bit in DAL/HOU to provide some balance?

You can't get a widebody into/out of KDAL or KHOU.

I don’t think that either DAL or HOU provide the scale they actually want in those cities. They may be close geographically, but they’re three of the fastest growing economies in the nation. Jordan has already said that expanding WN to DFW is not a matter of if, but when.

Where's SWA gonna fly WB too?

If they think they can compete with us on the WB level (or any level for that matter) they are gonna be sorely surprised. We've been in the WB game a long time. SWA will have to come up with a D1 or Polaris type cabin and commensurate service. SWA is a long, long long ways from that. Unless of course they are going to cattle car the WBs and fly them between AUS and BWI. Or something like that.

I do think it will be a little battle there in AUS, I'm surprised we only got 15 gates, after dropping 225M in to that airport for renovations (mostly for us though and our customers). SWA is not the juggernaut the fan bois think it is. When you compare product to DAL or UAL they are woefully behind the standard.

BOS- it would not be a base if it were not for Europe departures, which AUS won’t have on a scale anywhere close to BOS.
MCO - 70s are all ours plus we use the 80s and 90s a lot
MIA/FLL probably 25 gates combined
RDU- seems like we have at least 10 there but probably 15
CVG- we have most the B concourse, at least 15 gates there.
DCA/IAD combined is probably up there.

This and nothing else but this.

Pilot domiciles have nothing to do with “mission” or proximity to other domiciles, or the total size of an airport for us. While that last factor can be correlated, it’s absolutely not causal, and the first two are completely irrelevant.

DL marketing is very good. We see that every 2-14. Flexibility is their key to air power and revenue. The ability to change any given flight to a different pilot category AC based not only on the exact short, medium and long term revenue CASM/RASM/Segment cost plus other factors, of all the flights not only in question, but also several flights upstream and several downstream of each single AUS flight, mean they LOVE that flexibility and are loathe to give it up.

With having redundant AC on any given flight, marketing likes the flexibility to swap any airframe out every month based on complex up and downstream calculations. New domiciles can save some money over time by reducing credit and saving hotel costs, etc. However, get it wrong (or just not perfectly right) and you’ve generated credit and crew inefficiencies. New bases also have an up front cost to them with increased training churn, paid moves, etc. Standing the wrong one up (or any one too soon) and you save nothing and lose money for the effort.

FA’s on the other hand can much more easily justify a base because a FA group in a base can crew anything with a moments notice. Not so for pilots.

I do think we will see a BOS NB base eventually. AUS is absolutely possible as well but it’s not guaranteed until and unless marketing likes what they see long term for one particular AC over mostly redundant other AC both up and down line and gives the green light to make that very costly commitment.

The irony is that while one side of Crew Resources is trying to do this sophisticated cost sharpshooting based on data received from Network, the other side of the same department (Scheduling) is lighting money on fire every day via complete ineptitude and mismanagement.