Interesting. As soon as DAL starts de-hubbing MEM, Southwest adds a bunch of new flights in MEM. Wonder why they haven't done that in CVG yet?

Additionally, AirTran expands operations in Memphis with new nonstop flights between Memphis and Chicago (Midway), Baltimore/Washington, and Orlando, beginning Aug. 11, 2013. In Memphis, AirTran currently offers five daily nonstop flights to Atlanta.

 

And this is in the regional section why?

 

Because they are already in CMH, SDF, DAY and IND. All within 1 to 2 hours drive.

 

That's been their typical M.O.......viruses grow better in a vacuum and SWA spreads best in the vacuum left by the exit of others. Let's face it, they've become a formidable and powerfully strong disease, competitively speaking.

 

Why wouldn't it be? Southwest is a lot more regional than a lot of other regionals out there that have more pilots, fly to more countries, and have more airplane types.

 

Yeah, but it's similar in MEM too...LIT, BNA and JAN all within 1.5-3 hrs

 

....would you care to guess how powerfully competitive they've been in ATL recently?

You could ask the Aitran pilots who've seen their ATL departures fall 50% from their pre-merger peak.

Or you could ask people in cities like MIA.. CLT.. IAD.. DFW.. SRQ.. TYS.. HPN.. MDT.. HSV.. etc, etc what happened to their direct ATL serivce on SW/AT

A quick check of SWA's latest system traffic report for DEC2012 shows that passengers carried for DEC were down over 3%. PAX for the 4Q were down almost 4% and were also down 1% for the entire year.....and while most Delta pilots (including me) will complain about stagnation, Delta's latest System traffic stats released today show year over year PAX carried up nearly 1%.

The idea that SW is still a juggernaut growing like a weed is silly. They're a good solid company, but they're not out there grabbing market share like they used to. As with all mergers, 1 + 1 does not equal 2. At best, 1+1= 1.5

 

Agreed ... SWA is solid but they are not the growing power house they once were.

 

Except in Pittsburgh.....

 

I guess as long as you don't count wages, benefits, schedules, treatment of the labor, qualifications to get hired there versus your average regional, what the side of the airplane says versus who you bought a ticket on and just general quality of life, sure, Southwest is a regional.