How the Southwest merger could affect Tulsa

[SXSW]

Southwest and AirTran are merging.  Southwest, as you may know, offers the most non-stop flights out of TUL: 17 daily flights to Dallas Love, Houston Hobby, St. Louis, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix.  AirTran has hubs in Orlando, Milwaukee, and Baltimore/Washington.  Could this mean added flights from Tulsa to these cities?  I would love to also see Southwest add regional non-stop flights to San Antonio, Kansas City, Chicago Midway, Albuquerque, Nashville, and New Orleans.  It would also be great to have another non-stop to the West Coast as United offers the only non-stop to LAX.  Landing jetBlue with non-stops to New York and Austin and having Frontier (which just merged with Midwest Airlines) return would be great as well. 

http://www.lowfaresfarther.com/

[Cats Cats Cats]

The big thing is that they fly a few stops outside the US.

http://www.airtran.com/route-map/city_information.aspx

Based on their current routes Atlanta is their main hub.

[Conan71]

I don't see any major changes in the offering to Tulsa as a result.  I don't think there's enough demand for any of the direct routes you mentioned.  As well, I think the Wright Amendment would prevent any TUL-AUS, TUL-SAT direct routes.  I'm also not sure about the range on a fully loaded 737 in SWA's pax configuration being able to fly to LA or BWI non-stop.  One would assume if you can fly non-stop from Tulsa to Phoenix, you would have enough plus reserves to make it to the coast.  I think as the jet liner flies, LA is maybe an additional 30-45 minutes from Tulsa than it is to Phoenix.

[SXSW]

I don't see any major changes in the offering to Tulsa as a result.  I don't think there's enough demand for any of the direct routes you mentioned.  As well, I think the Wright Amendment would prevent any TUL-AUS, TUL-SAT direct routes.  I'm also not sure about the range on a fully loaded 737 in SWA's pax configuration being able to fly to LA or BWI non-stop.  One would assume if you can fly non-stop from Tulsa to Phoenix, you would have enough plus reserves to make it to the coast.  I think as the jet liner flies, LA is maybe an additional 30-45 minutes from Tulsa.

OKC currently has a non-stop to BWI on Southwest.  They also have a non-stop to Washington Dulles on United.  Tulsa currently has no non-stops to the DC area so it makes sense for one of those airlines to offer the service at some point.  Albuquerque has several non-stops to the West Coast on Southwest: Seattle, Portland, Oakland, LA, San Diego.  Snagging one of those routes would be nice.  Having a few more regional routes is important too.  It doesn't make any sense that we don't have non-stops to bigger regional cities like San Antonio, Austin, New Orleans and Kansas City.

And the Wright Amendment is scheduled to end in 2014.  It will be interesting to see what happens when that time comes. 

[swake]

Baltimore/Washington is the largest metro we don't currently have service to and Orlando is the nations second largest tourist destination. My guess would be that we pick up both BWI and Orlando. We have had Orlando flights off and on before, if we can add some hub type traffic to Orlando and BWI it should be easier to justify the flights.

[dbacks fan]

 I'm also not sure about the range on a fully loaded 737 in SWA's pax configuration being able to fly to LA or BWI non-stop.  One would assume if you can fly non-stop from Tulsa to Phoenix, you would have enough plus reserves to make it to the coast.  I think as the jet liner flies, LA is maybe an additional 30-45 minutes from Tulsa than it is to Phoenix.

SWA flies one non stop daily between Phoenix and Boston, Phoenix to Orlando, and Buffalo NY, all seem to be btween just over 4 hours to almost 5 hours, as an educated guess the range might be just under 6 hours including reserve fuel.

[swake]

Most of Southwest Planes are 737-700s with a range of 6200 Km, which is enough to fly between BWI and TIA three times without landing and still have about 1000 Km in reserve. To that point, SWA does fly from OKC to BWI right now, and that would have to be just a little further an TIA to BWI.

AirTran does have a bunch of 717s with much less range, but my guess would be that that SWA will not keep those planes at all.

[Hoss]

Most of Southwest Planes are 737-700s with a range of 6200 Km, which is enough to fly between BWI and TIA three times without landing and still have about 1000 Km in reserve. To that point, SWA does fly from OKC to BWI right now, and that would have to be just a little further an TIA to BWI.

AirTran does have a bunch of 717s with much less range, but my guess would be that that SWA will not keep those planes at all.

717s are essentially MD-90 stretches (actually during development they called it the MD-95, then Boeing bought MD and said they'd keep the design as the 717).  Their max ranges at MTOW of about 121000 lbs for the extended range 200 series is just over 2000 NM.

[SXSW]

Most of Southwest Planes are 737-700s with a range of 6200 Km, which is enough to fly between BWI and TIA three times without landing and still have about 1000 Km in reserve. To that point, SWA does fly from OKC to BWI right now, and that would have to be just a little further an TIA to BWI.

AirTran does have a bunch of 717s with much less range, but my guess would be that that SWA will not keep those planes at all.

SWA likes the 737 because it can streamline its maintenance having just one type of plane.  They make keep some of the AirTran 717's for shorter routes.  If SWA began a Tulsa-Kansas City non-stop, for instance, I could see it being on a 717.  Though I would prefer Frontier return to Tulsa with non-stops to Denver and Kansas City, and maybe their hub in Milwaukee.  Frontier merged with Midwest Airlines and is expanding from its bases in Denver, KC and Milwaukee.  

That being said, it would not surprise me at all to see BWI, Atlanta, and Orlando non-stops added from Tulsa on SWA.  That would be great for expanding non-stop service from TUL.  

[Conan71]

Most of Southwest Planes are 737-700s with a range of 6200 Km, which is enough to fly between BWI and TIA three times without landing and still have about 1000 Km in reserve. To that point, SWA does fly from OKC to BWI right now, and that would have to be just a little further an TIA to BWI.

AirTran does have a bunch of 717s with much less range, but my guess would be that that SWA will not keep those planes at all.

The 717's will be the first thing to go, depending on lease arrangements which may be in place.

Their aircraft choice has been a cornerstone of the cost savings in the SWA business model all along- fly one aircraft type and your parts,  maintenance, and training costs are significantly less.  One of the other great ideas is very quick gate turn-arounds and selecting a model of aircraft when they started up which did not require a flight engineer on the flight deck. 

[dbacks fan]

I think the main thing Tulsa will see is being able to connect to flights to cities previously not served, either by direct (not nonstop) or change planes flights, and maybe the ability to get a nonstop  that used to be offered so that flight can connect elsewhere. Here there will be minimal change since Airtran only has one gate in terminal 3.

[dbacks fan]

The big thing is that they fly a few stops outside the US.

http://www.airtran.com/route-map/city_information.aspx

Based on their current routes Atlanta is their main hub.

I agree that this is the biggest thing for them is to get a toe hold in the Carribean.

[nathanm]

I don't see any major changes in the offering to Tulsa as a result.  I don't think there's enough demand for any of the direct routes you mentioned.  As well, I think the Wright Amendment would prevent any TUL-AUS, TUL-SAT direct routes.

The Wright Amendment, which is being phased out anyway, only applies to flights to/from DAL.

[dbacks fan]

For thos interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Amendment

[TheArtist]

  Check out Allegiant Airlines out of NWA for some great deals.   Its a short drive and can save you a ton of money.   It cost about $250 for two of us to fly round trip, non stop flights, to Orlando/Sanford.