ZapBrannigan

I’d like to see Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax. There are airports north of the border too.

In the US, Knoxville, Asheville, Greensboro, Myrtle Beach, Charlie West, Savannah, Syracuse, Burlington, XNA, Anchorage, Juneau, Palm Springs, Fresno, Daytona Beach or Melbourne..

Still lots of low hanging fruit out there for Baby Boeings


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e6bpilot

I am not really sure why the aversion to Canada.

Burlington, VT, Missoula, Anchorage, Juneau would also be great destinations.

Timmay

Throw Rapid City, SD on the list too.

Psycho18th

I’ve often wondered about XNA. Seems that would make some dough. How many repeat/frequent travelers from Canada? Seems all the Canadians in PHX, drive a giant pickup down about OCT, and head back north about April. Maybe in other markets it’s more frequent. Seems someone like an Allegiant model would fit those travelers better.

ZapBrannigan

XNA is a unique market because it is all high fare, last minute business travel. The problem with that is that it demands high frequency. American has something like 10 flights a day just to DFW in addition to Chicago, LaGuardia, Charlotte, DC...

United and Delta are both in there with a mix of mainline and RJs to their hubs, including SFO for United. So there’s money to be made there, but it demands some scale for Walmart, JB Hunt, Tyson Foods etc to use it.

There is also some art-tourism as a result of Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges museum of American Art. She really shook things up by buying up one of a kind historic pieces from museums around the globe and shipping them to her museum in the middle of nowhere Arkansas... but it has generated a little bit of Art tourism. Still just a tiny fraction of the business travel demand from that airport though. Walmart alone has a fleet of 17 corporate jets that still only support about 10% of their corporate travel demand.

Leisure travelers will drive to Tulsa to save a few bucks. It’s those businesses that make XNA one of the highest airfare markets in the country.


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Botched

hahahaahhahahah, crapid is 100% rj market. forever.

Proximity

Financials came out today. As they relate to hiring, 742 aircraft on property as of today, 751 by the end of the year. Future deliveries, 2019 - 34, 2020 - 35, 2021 - 44, 2022 - 41, 2023 - 57, 2024 - 64, 2025 - 76, 2026 - 19. I included options because SWA has always taken option aircraft.

Current pilot to aircraft ratio is 13:1.

ASMs next year to increase "no more than five percent".

Based on aircraft deliveries and retirements we need about 550 FOs next year.

Big question is if this is the level of manning they are targeting. It would be better IMHO if we got a little leaner on FOs.

Proximity

Frontier recently managed to find Canada. Yet for some reason we sit on the sidelines.

Seems like connecting eastern Canadians to Florida and western Canadians to LAX would be simple enough. Market research could consist of looking where Canadian airlines are flying from into our bases.

ZapBrannigan

Wonder how many of those deliveries are replacing -700s that are being retired?


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Proximity

Does anyone have any official NG retirement information? I've looked around a few times and never found any. Nothing in any of the investor reports or on swalife.

The best info I can find is our 700 fleet has an average age of 14.6 years and the older airplanes are approaching 20 years old.

Remember, the original plan for the classics was to operate them until 2023! I do realize that eventually they will have to be retired but I think we're good for the next year or so atleast.

I'm just waiting for the day when someone complains when they see an old 700 at the gate.