“AirTran was losing money in Atlanta”. That’s not what the tyrannies are believing.

Next you'll tell me the 717 wasn't the greatest airplane ever built, either.

They maybe right but if you listen to Elliott's podcast, they want to do Airtran 2.0. Premium seating(not leg room), regional feed, hub and spoke with code sharing. Remember, Airtran had a regional feed which SWAPA forced SWA to get rid of. Which opened up a huge hole in ATL and MKE. Much more in ATL just because of Delta. Without the feed, the revenue side collapsed. To be fair, SWA management wanted to make a point to point style operation. All those destinations that SWA closed, were either added by Frontier, Spirit and Delta. In a hub of that size, it doesn't cost Delta anything to add a destination that probably already had or right size it.

Which podcast is this? Mind sharing as I seemed to have missed it?

Who did AT use to feed and what cities did they serve ?

Air Wisconsin for while. Then Skywest. 18 cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTran_JetConnect

What was with the SL9 I keep hearing about?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic..._campaign=copy

Looks like Elliott and SWA have entered negotiations. I would think according to article if Elliott gets seats but still is in the minority, BJ stays. It says Elliott will not have control. Guess we will see.

Yes, I think we have just passed "Peak Elliott." They don't appear to have the votes from the rest of the institutional investor crowd, and will probably start to fade into the background in the most face-saving way possible. I do appreciate them facilitating some long overdue changes to the Board and to the company's business plan, but it was also becoming increasingly obvious that they don't know the first thing about the nuts & bolts of running (much less improving) an airline. Elliott and SWA mgmt will hopefully converge on a reasonable compromise that both can live with from here.

You may very well be correct, but I wouldn't jump to any hasty conclusions. The object of a negotiation is to avoid a costly and unpredictable proxy battle that may end up being bad for both competing interests. It is the corporate equivalent of binding arbitration. I don't think SWA would be so keen to negotiate if they held all the cards. The negotiation could end with no agreement, it could end with a negotiated settlement that requires BJ to pack his stuff, it could end with BJ sticking around. We will see.

This is what Elliott does. It's their whole thing. I think they are going to accomplish a lot more than saving face. If BJ and crew really had the institutional investors in their pockets, I think this would look a lot differently than it does.