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I know many thought this expansion to South Carolina would not happen. Last summer the rumors were being circulated within Southwest Airlines that GSP was going to land service. Well, the time has arrived and the rumors were true. I look for you guys to get service starting around the February to May 2011 time frame. Schedules and city destinations take a enormous amount of planning in advance. Initial service will more than likely be about 8 flights a day for start-up operations. Staffing for Ground operations and customer service positions will draw initially from Southwest Airlines current employee base. Welcome to the Southwest Family.
Scott
Ground Operations Southwest Airlines
Excellent post. Looking forward to Southwest starting service! I have a feeling Greenville and Southwest will be excellent partners, each reaping multiple benefits.
I know many thought this expansion to South Carolina would not happen. Last summer the rumors were being circulated within Southwest Airlines that GSP was going to land service. Well, the time has arrived and the rumors were true. I look for you guys to get service starting around the February to May 2011 time frame. Schedules and city destinations take a enormous amount of planning in advance. Initial service will more than likely be about 8 flights a day for start-up operations. Staffing for Ground operations and customer service positions will draw initially from Southwest Airlines current employee base. Welcome to the Southwest Family.
Additionally, around 250 Upstate businesses signed letters committing to buy Southwest tickets and fly from GSP instead of traveling to Atlanta or Charlotte to catch flights, said Richard Blackwell of the Upstate SC Alliance.
The Alliance worked with GSP, private businesses and several Upstate chambers of commerce to create the Upstate South Carolina Air Service Partnership last summer to pursue Southwest. The letters were used to make a business case for Southwest to come to GSP.
Additionally, around 250 Upstate businesses signed letters committing to buy Southwest tickets and fly from GSP instead of traveling to Atlanta or Charlotte to catch flights, said Richard Blackwell of the Upstate SC Alliance.
The Alliance worked with GSP, private businesses and several Upstate chambers of commerce to create the Upstate South Carolina Air Service Partnership last summer to pursue Southwest. The letters were used to make a business case for Southwest to come to GSP.
LOVE IT! That virtually guarantees that the new Southwest service will have plenty of passengers! The reason Airtran left Charleston is allegedly because flyers took advantage of the matching prices and extra capacity the incumbent carriers (mainly DL) dumped on the market, rather than using the airline than brought the low fares in the first place. This helps ensure that won't happen with Southwest here!
LOVE IT! That virtually guarantees that the new Southwest service will have plenty of passengers! The reason Airtran left Charleston is allegedly because flyers took advantage of the matching prices and extra capacity the incumbent carriers (mainly DL) dumped on the market, rather than using the airline than brought the low fares in the first place. This helps ensure that won't happen with Southwest here!
Yep. Not only does this ensure Southwest will be successful here, it will also help GSP increase passenger traffic while helping the other airlines already in existence here attract new and existing passengers to GSP with potentially lower fares and more destinations. And no the other airlines already in existence at GSP won't be hurt either. Independence Air in 2005 proved this. While there are lots of people who love Southwest, there are also people who don't. Many people like the legacy carriers better for different reasons. I personally fly Delta myself.
Additionally, around 250 Upstate businesses signed letters committing to buy Southwest tickets and fly from GSP instead of traveling to Atlanta or Charlotte to catch flights, said Richard Blackwell of the Upstate SC Alliance.
The Alliance worked with GSP, private businesses and several Upstate chambers of commerce to create the Upstate South Carolina Air Service Partnership last summer to pursue Southwest. The letters were used to make a business case for Southwest to come to GSP.
It is great to see how the local business community really got behind this push for Southwest. Should ensure a successful (and long) future for Southwest in Greenville.
I'm a Southwest A-lister out of BHM who regularly flies to RDU, BWI, and JAX on Southwest and then drives up to 3 hours just to keep my direct flights. This news is excellent, indeed. Southwest is the best airlines and is figuring out the market so far ahead of Delta and the rest. Yippee!
You have every right to question Southwest's leadership as to why they choose to serve X and Y, but not GSP. 38 straight years of profitable gives you one possible answer to why SWA isn't serving GSP. Just maybe the folks in Dallas, know a little bit about how to keep an airline profitable. Sure, they might be losing some money by not flying to GSP, or maybe they might be saving a ton of money by avoiding GSP.
Southwest is all about originating traffic (traffic produced when a customer buys a ticket from Point A their originating city to Point C their destination city.) Notice I failed to mention Point B (any connecting city).
Let's examine the originating traffic in GSP. 100% of traffic in GSP and CHS, CAE and MYR is originating. In other words, 100 % of the passengers get off the planes and depart the airport with their bags at these airports in vehicles. Passengers at these airports do not take another flight to another city once they land in either CAE, CHS, GSP, or MYR. They get in their cars, or shuttle vans to hotels and resorts. Compare these SC cities to cities like BWI (Baltimore) and BNA (Nashville). Flights originate from MDW (Chicago) to both BWI and BNA, with passengers doing one of three things.
They either:
1) Get off the plane and drive away
2) Get off the plane and then take another plane to another city e.g., MDW-BWI Change planes then fly to BWI to ORF
3) Stay on the same plane and continue to another city (MDW-BNA-JAX)
In the first example both MDW and BNA will be sorted at "Originating Traffic" In the latter two examples BNA and BWI are not originating traffic, but rather connecting city-pairs. MDW, JAX and ORF will get the credit for the originating traffic, and this is where Southwest is looking to add cities.
So why is SWA in BHM, JAN and LIT someone asked : LIT got SWA service in 1984 when SWA was 12 years old. Trent Lott was instrumental in getting SWA to JAN in 1997, when Lott saved SWA customers millions in the way taxes are charged on tickets. Lott effectively keep taxes from being charges on each segment of a ticket, which would have raised the prices on the majority of SWA tickets at the time. Lott helped Herb, Herb started JAN service in return.
Compare traffic in ATL, CLT, CIN, and MEM. Less than 100% of traffic is originating. How much? I don't know. Trust me, Southwest knows, and looks closely at this data.
Click on SC, and you will see that as of 1/27/10, CHS had 3685 seats compared to GSP 2140. These numbers are dynamic. Check them again in May when Spoleto is in full swing, Isle of Palms, Folly Beach and Kiawah Island are hosting families. Charleston's numbers will rise with Delta adding more MD-88s and reducing the number of RJs flying to/from ATL.
Most logical people agree the greater Greenville-Spartenburg metro area is larger than the metro area of Charleston, SC I understand Mt Pleasant, Isle of Palms, Sullivan's Island, Kiawah and Seabrook aren't included in the Charleston figures, but even if they were, GSP would still be nearly twice the size of the metro CHS area.
So, CHS is roughly half the size of GSP, yet has more seats flying to/from it's airport even after Airtran pulled out. Why? Tourism. MYR with a population of roughly 320K gets four times the seat availability simply due to tourism and it's February when I type this. When spring and summer hits, MRY will get more seats just as CHS will.
Airtran claims to have left CHS as it "couldn't get enough Business Travelers". It's a disengenious claim, as Airtran knows Charleston, SC isn't a business destination. Neither is Charleston, WV (population 300K). Airtran pulled out of Charleston, SC when their incentives pulled out. So Airtran pulled out of CHS for CRW? I will give Airtran 18 months before the pull the plug on CRW.
Here's another difference between SWA and Airtran. When Southwest opens a city, Southwest moves rampers, Ops Agents, Customer Service agents into that city. The folks working for Airtran in Charleston, just like Savannah were contractor workers, not Airtran employees. The Delta Ramp workers in Charleston don't work for Delta either. Delta outsources and using non-Delta rampers. Southwest uses Southwest employees with Southwest benefits. Does it make a difference? It does when a company like Airtran decides to pull the plug on a city. When Airtran left Charleston, SC they simply terminated the contracted with their rampers and agents. Airtran pulls the plug on a city quickly. SAV got the same treatment.
So what's my point? As much as I wish SWA would serve GSP and CHS, the fact remains CHS is far more likely to get SWA over GSP, as much as any of you love the upstate.
My rationale:
GSP is too far from CLT to effectively pull passengers. It's is 84 miles from the CLT airport on the southern portion of CLT to GSP. With Airtran already in CLT, why would SWA serve GSP as a means to pull from CLT? This argument doesn't make sense. If SWA wanted to serve CLT, they will wait for a gate in CLT. SWA flying to GSP to pull from the metro CLT area won't work with Airtran already serving CLT. SWA passed on CLT in Jan 2005 when SWA announced PIT. The very next month, Airtran announced service to CLT. How many folks in Atlanta are willing to drive to BHM to fly SWA? Not many with Airtran flying out of ATL.
The largest US metro areas Southwest doesn't serve are ATL, CLT, CIN, MEM. Puerto Rico is an US Terrority. No customs. JetBlue & Airtran are making money there, and certainly have far more traffic than either GSP or CHS.
Not starting a flame, just giving everyone a different perspective. If I had to bet, I would guess CHS over GSP for the tourism effective primarily, coupled with the fact that every flight from Orlando to cities Norfolk and north fly over Charleston. The routing to/from Orlando (MCO) to/from ORF- BWI- PHL- LGA-PVD-BOS-MHT-BDL is over Jacksonville (JAX), Savannah (SAV), Charleston(CHS), then up to Norfolk and north.
If you want to know why, it's due to the Warning Areas off the Atlantic Coast. Airlines would love to cut the corner from ORF to MCO, but aren't allowed to do so. Southwest does fly over the Atlantic to/from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) up to the east coast, but the departures and arrivals into and out of
SWA flies up and down this routing daily, and it would be relatively easy to drop into to Charleston, from MCO then continue to BWI. Connecting through BNA to MDW and/or HOU would mostly likely get the nod as well. It would mimic the SWA pattern to connect traffic from FLL to TPA then continue, or JAX to BNA or JAX to BWI.
What are the smallest cities that SWA has announced since 2004? Fort Myers and now Panama City (which will open in May 2010). Which city is more like Fort Myers, or Panama City? GSP or CHS? Not trying to start a flame, but just trying to give the folks in the upstate a more realistic view of Southwest.
I expect a SWA announcement late spring/ early summer announcing new cities for 2011. But I'm not betting on either GSP, or CHS. I'm hopeful, but not expecting GSP, CHS, CAE or MYR. If and when SWA starts service to South Carolina, I'm guessing CHS for the reasons I listed above.
Hey, I'm sure I have plenty of typos here, but I'm short on time...forgive me in advance for my miscues, and I will edit this posted if allowed.
v/r
Hmmm...what happened to G4Driver? Coincidence G4 is also the call letters for Allegiant?
Going back and reading this thread leaves some great memories and not so great ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by g-man430
FACT: Panama City and GSP were in the running for Southwest. Panama City is the one who landed it. GSP's deal with Southwest is now in trouble because of this. The deal is not dead but it's not looking good. Bash me all you want. In six months if we still haven't landed the airline then maybe you'll believe me.
I am soo stupid. to myself.
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Looking forward to Southwest starting service! I have a feeling Greenville and Southwest will be excellent partners, each reaping multiple benefits. 
thanks very much for the info! 
I will give Airtran 18 months before the pull the plug on CRW. 
Coincidence G4 is also the call letters for Allegiant? 
I am soo stupid. 
to myself.
