Southwest and AirTran Announce Summer Plans

Southwest Airlines and its wholly-owned subsidiary AirTran Airways have announced the latest changes to their route network for the late May to early August period. These will include a range of new routes but also the cancellation of some existing services.

Southwest Airlines will offer new daily flights from Houston Hobby to Kansas City, Raleigh-Durham and Seattle as well as daily flights between Chicago Midway and Oklahoma City from June 3, 2012. The Houston Hobby – Kansas City route is already served on a daily basis by Frontier Airlines, while Kansas City, Raleigh-Durham and Seattle are all served from Houston George Bush Intercontinental with flights from Continental Airlines and Alaska Airlines. There is also no direct competition between Chicago Midway and Oklahoma City, although American Airlines and United Airlines offer flights from Chicago O’Hare International.

AirTran will enhance its offering from Baltimore and Denver. From Baltimore it will introduce twice daily flights to Seattle and Los Angeles and daily flights to New Orleans and San Francisco, while from Denver it will introduce twice daily services to New York La Guardia and daily rotations to Akron and Dayton from June 3, 2012.

The carrier will also add international services including a twice daily link between Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood and San Juan, Puerto Rico from May 24, 2012 and services from San Antonio to Cancun and Mexico City beginning May 2012, and Orange County, California to Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City beginning June 2012, subject to government approval.

"We have been very encouraged by the success of AirTran's existing international service and we look forward to building upon that success," said Bob Jordan, Southwest Airlines Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer and AirTran Airways President. "We continue to set the stage for long-term growth by aligning our current networks to maximise what we each do best. The next step, which we anticipate will happen in the first half of next year, will be to connect these two strong networks to offer our collective passengers lower fares on more flights, which we believe will greatly benefit consumers and create significant revenue potential for Southwest."

However, it is not all about growth and AirTran is to suspend services on six existing routes from June 2012, cutting just under 60 weekly flights from its network. These comprise its three times daily links between Atlanta and Bloomington and Washington Dulles; its daily Baltimore – Miami service and its operations from Orlando to Bloomington, Charleston and Knoxville, which are currently served twice, five times and twice weekly, respectively.