“Southwest is likely going to be more vulnerable.Sangster International Airport is a convenient three miles east of Montego Bay.Īt Southwest, we know it takes more than great deals on Montego Bay airfares and convenient scheduling options to make your trip memorable. “I think Spirit and Frontier look at a market like Atlanta and say, ‘We can grow there and win,’” Harteveldt said. Southwest “may have very attractive fares but they’re no longer the lowest-priced airline,” he said. Harteveldt thinks Atlanta presents a growth opportunity for a combined Spirit-Frontier.
Watterson said he doesn’t expect it will change where Southwest flies. Yet to be seen is how a recently announced merger between ultra low-cost carriers Spirit and Frontier Airlines could affect competition. Explore Southwest begins selling flights to Savannah “We liked our size in Atlanta before the pandemic,” said Watterson, adding service is at about 70% of pre-pandemic levels currently. Most airlines have scaled back flights during the pandemic, and Southwest is focused on bringing its service back to pre-pandemic levels “over the next year or so.” Watterson said Southwest remains dedicated to Atlanta, with 2,700 employees here. While AirTran operated about 220 daily flights from its Atlanta hub, Southwest has less than half that, with up to 106 daily flights at Hartsfield-Jackson on more than 40 nonstop routes.Īnd while AirTran had international flights from Atlanta to Mexico and the Caribbean, Southwest made Houston Hobby its international gateway and currently has no cross-border flights from Atlanta on its route map. The airline says its market share has actually expanded when measuring just passengers who start or end their trips in Atlanta instead of passing through.Ītlanta is now Southwest’s 11th-largest city. That rules out service to many small towns and limits its breadth. Southwest focuses primarily on direct routes between two cities that already have enough local demand to fill a 737. The result is that Atlanta has significantly more Delta flights than the city would get based on local demand alone. Hub carriers like Delta funnel passengers from big cities and small towns into a transfer hub to fill a plane headed to another destination. While Delta depends on Atlanta as its largest hub and a gateway to Latin America, Europe and Africa, Southwest operates a “point-to-point” network without traditional connecting hubs and mostly focuses on domestic flights. Explore AirTran jets find new home at Delta Federal data show Southwest has the lowest average fares on some routes from Atlanta, but not always.Ī key reason Southwest hasn’t grown into a bigger rival to Delta in Atlanta is their differing approach to their route network. On an inflation-adjusted basis, average Atlanta fares in the the third quarter of 2021 were nearly 20% lower than in the same quarter of 2019, and nearly 25% lower than in 2012, according to federal data. 2,” he added in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.īut gauging what causes airline fares to rise and fall is notoriously tricky amid complex and constantly changing pricing that spans different cabin classes and includes various add-on fees for everything from extra luggage to early boarding.Īir fares have fallen the last two years as traffic declined because of the pandemic, after inching up between 20. “We think that we provide great value to the city by being that kind of strong No. Watterson said Southwest has provided “good price discipline” and lowered fares on routes it serves from Atlanta by 10% to 14% between 20. It’s unclear how much Southwest’s arrival helped drive down fares for consumers, if at all. Explore JetBlue raises concerns about challenges cracking into Atlanta market
He believes Southwest bought AirTran “to take out a competitor,” not build market share in Atlanta. “Frankly Southwest has squandered the opportunity that AirTran gave them to start with a sizable presence in the market and grow,” said Harteveldt. Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst for Atmosphere Research Group, said when Southwest acquired AirTran, it “made a very big deal” about acquiring an Atlanta hub. But Southwest only has 9% of total passengers here, down from Southwest-AirTran’s roughly 15% market share a decade ago. Southwest gained entry into Atlanta by acquiring AirTran Airways, a low-cost carrier that had its primary hub at Hartsfield-Jackson.