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lets hope southwest cleans house of the airtran service folks - worst airline i've ever flown bar none - only flown them 2x and both times there are issues.
they are notorious for cancelled flights, rarely on time - I hope southwest trims the fat big time when this goes thru
Ditto on the problems. They charged my daughter excess baggage fees for being (supposedly) 1" over regulation. Funny thing was, when she flew down (another airlines) it wasn't oversized and when she got off the plane and went to baggage services they said it wasn't oversized. Called Airtran and they said whatever check-in said, goes.
I pray SW doesn't go the route of AT, esp when it comes to baggage. The reason we fly SW when we can is because of this. Was great when my son graduated college and we had to cart all his crap home,. We took what we could, shipped the rest via Greyhound, can't imagine if we had to pay for the bags we were able to take on for free between all the family members.
This is GREAT news in my opinion. Airtran was horrible. DFW (Dallas) is a goner. If I had to guess, GSP will probably get more destinations than originally proposed by Southwest Airlines. GSP wasn't going to gain much if any market share from the ALT and CLT citizens anyways thanks to major hubs and large low cost carrier operations at those airports. Oh and it's going to look really weird seeing the Southwest paint scheme on a 717.
The only potential problem I see with the merger, in terms of its effect on GSP, is that GSP won't enjoy as much incoming traffic from neighboring cities. Prior to the merger, those east of ATL and south of AVL/CLT would have been more likely to come out to GSP to enjoy our short lines and low fares. However, now Southwest will serve all of those cities, and we will again be in competition with those airports.
Regardless, our fares will still significantly decrease, but I don't know that the passenger traffic will increase as much as previously projected. This just makes it more important for Upstate residents to stay faithful to the company that brought the low fares to begin with.
You wanna talk about the effect of this merger, well, Columbia is screwed. Honestly though, it's karma for all those whining Columbia politicians trying to block Southwest from coming to GSP. Seriously, all but two airports within 300 miles of Columbia will now have Southwest service after the merger is final.
This is GREAT news in my opinion. Airtran was horrible. DFW (Dallas) is a goner. If I had to guess, GSP will probably get more destinations than originally proposed by Southwest Airlines. GSP wasn't going to gain much if any market share from the ALT and CLT citizens anyways thanks to major hubs and large low cost carrier operations at those airports. Oh and it's going to look really weird seeing the Southwest paint scheme on a 717.
Since SWA is known for having just one aircraft type to keep costs down, I wonder if they will eventually phase out the 717's or sell them. At this time, it looks like SWA will absorb them into their fleet.
Quote:
The 717 _ a successor of the MD-80 twinjet industry workhorse _ "is an airplane we think we can manage well,” Kelly told analysts and reporters during the conference call. “It's very cost effective. We are very comfortable we can make that work."
Read more: Southwest Airlines to buy rival AirTran for $1.4 billion | Airlines and Aviation | Dalla... (http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/09/27/2497116_p2/southwest-airlines-to-buy-airtran.html#ixzz10kmnFwCE - broken link)
From some further reading today, it looks like SW Execs say they will keep the 117 seat 717's. I bet GSP will see some of those, seeing that the 717's are more of a "regional" type of aircraft competing against Bombardier and others. The 717 airframe is no longer in production though.
GSP can handle 737's, but this comment says a lot:
Quote:
"Our pilots have looked at it [the 717] and like it," Kelly states. The aircraft will also allow Southwest to operate in markets too small to support its 737 fleet.
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