In regards to FLL let's not forget They will be temporary down to one Runway anyway in the spring 2019.

Flyguy

SteveXC500 wrote:

April/May would be a bit slower anyway, right? Spring Break wraps up. School still in session. Travel is weak in April and May. Someone clarify that a bit more for me.

It isn't slow, schools start letting out in May, plus there is Easter, Memorial Day, and the late part of Spring Break season. Slow months are: September, November (other than Thanksgiving), December (other than Christmas), January, and February.

MIAFLLPBIFlyer wrote:

One thing I have noticed is UA hasn't flinched from FLL flying when WN or B6 enters markets. AA on the other hand simply cuts routes to the point where FLL is hardly even a spoke anymore, preferring all local passengers use MIA. UA has successfully now seen WN off both these routes.

AA actually has a hub at MIA, whereas UA doesn't have any hubs in Florida. In addition, WN also already serves FLL nonstop from DCA and BWI in the Baltimore/Washington region.

They cut fll from ewr and iAd because they are getting killed on there. Let’s not make up reason why these cuts are made.

And I am not sure ewr mco is coming back either outside of maybe Saturday service.

I think it's safe to say that nobody on A.net expected much on the extension, and I don't think anyone was disappointed!

bb

I think it's time to argue that Southwest needs a 100 to 125 seater to actually grow in a lot of markets. The Increasing capacity of their planes are making it hard to add routes outside of their largest focus cities.

The only hope now is for the Max 7s to start rolling in to see some worthwhile, wholesale adds

When will the higher oil start the orders for the E2s and A-220 to start to pick up.

SANFan wrote:

I think it's safe to say that nobody on A.net expected much on the extension, and I don't think anyone was disappointed!

bb

I think these threads may need to be euthanized. It's been a long time since there was something even interesting enough to warrant a thread.

enilria wrote:

SANFan wrote:

I think it's safe to say that nobody on A.net expected much on the extension, and I don't think anyone was disappointed!

bb

I think these threads may need to be euthanized. It's been a long time since there was something even interesting enough to warrant a thread.

^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^

EvanWSFO wrote:

enilria wrote:

SANFan wrote:

I think it's safe to say that nobody on A.net expected much on the extension, and I don't think anyone was disappointed!

bb

I think these threads may need to be euthanized. It's been a long time since there was something even interesting enough to warrant a thread.

^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^

This extension was the icing on the cake for these threads, WN isn't doing anything with their route network (outside of HI).

Aren't they on a hiring freeze?

Curious that MCI-PDX and CMH-OAK are once again on seasonal hiatus. Both of these were year-round in the past and had been getting seasonal trims. They both operating in the March schedule, MCI-PDX daily and CMH-OAK weekly. And then come early April they are cut for the "season". It seems likely these will end up being peak summer only like quite a few other longish-haul west coast flights.

It might be an interesting exercise to see what portion of routes are (a) year-round defacto hub flights (b) year-round nonhub flights (c) seasonal flights. My gut is that A and C have grown quite a bit in recent years in proportion to G.

Midwestindy wrote:

EvanWSFO wrote:

enilria wrote:

I think these threads may need to be euthanized. It's been a long time since there was something even interesting enough to warrant a thread.

^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^

This extension was the icing on the cake for these threads, WN isn't doing anything with their route network (outside of HI).

Aren't they on a hiring freeze?

Nope.
Still hiring system wide especially in the mega cities.
For the Above the wing pilots are needed for big retirement groups in 2020/25.
FA everything until the MAX7 is 4 flight attendants needed for all the MAX8 coming next year.

Flyguy

enilria wrote:

I think these threads may need to be euthanized. It's been a long time since there was something even interesting enough to warrant a thread.

I certainly agree. I can state that I won't be starting one again!

bb

wnflyguy wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

EvanWSFO wrote:

^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^

This extension was the icing on the cake for these threads, WN isn't doing anything with their route network (outside of HI).

Aren't they on a hiring freeze?

Nope.
Still hiring system wide especially in the mega cities.
For the Above the wing pilots are needed for big retirement groups in 2020/25.
FA everything until the MAX7 is 4 flight attendants needed for all the MAX8 coming next year.

Flyguy

Remember, Hawaii flying **SHOULD** begin by the time of this schedule so they're keeping slack in the fleet for that. They also have the impending opening of their PAE station, probably mid-2019 timeframe. I'd also argue they're banking on getting additional LGB slots. Also, does anyone know if the 738MAX deliveries are still slowed due to supplier issues? All of this is keeping them from growing the rest of their network. The next schedule release is thru August 5. I'm hoping by next summer, they'll be in a position to grow their network beyond Hawaii and the 5 PAE flights.

April/May aren't necessarily the slowest months of the year, but it's also not the summer travel season. This is post-Spring Break, and sure you have Easter weekend (which I would argue isn't necessarily a huge travel weekend) and Memorial Day weekend, but that's just two potentially busy weekends during this schedule release. Let's wait and see what the next schedule extension brings..

RicFlyer wrote:

No change at RIC. Still don't understand WN strategy at RIC. Things are booming here:

Richmond International Airport reports a new, all-time monthly passenger traffic record of 383,272 travelers in August 2018. This is the fourth occasion since last October that an all-time monthly record has been reported by RIC.For August 2018, RIC notes a 13.6 percent increase in total passenger traffic versus the same period a year ago.

https://flyrichmond.com/airport-awards- ... n-project/

You took the words right out of my mouth. Amazes me with how much growth RIC and the central Virginia in general are having yet WN continues to neglect them with only 1 route. I fly the route to ATL religiously when traveling to and from DEN however I have learned to go with UA during the Winter/Christmas period. Too many times has ATL been a roll of the dice regarding weather and other problems that might cause cancelations. With only 3 daily flights at most to ATL it doesn't exactly give you any options as far as getting rerouted through a different airport. On UA when my flight to ORD on my way to LAX was canceled they actually gave me a choice as to whether I wanted to get to LAX via IAD, EWR or DEN instead.

The WN press release is technically wrong. DAL-PNS has never been flown daily. It’s always been only seasonal weekend service. So, while small, this is growth for WN in the market.

Midwestindy wrote:

EvanWSFO wrote:

enilria wrote:

I think these threads may need to be euthanized. It's been a long time since there was something even interesting enough to warrant a thread.

^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^

This extension was the icing on the cake for these threads, WN isn't doing anything with their route network (outside of HI).

Aren't they on a hiring freeze?

No.... Not at all. Still hiring. Methodical growth. No F9 darts.

It's not just Southwest not growing in Richmond, but BWI as well. Southwest continues to under perform growth at BWI. The BWI pie keeps growing but Southwest's slice keeps shrinking. Their market share continues to drop - down to 65% Not shabby, but not the 70% they had. Meanwhile Spirit is now up to 10% share and fast approaching levels that AirTran had. How long until we see a more aggressive Southwest response?

czek6 wrote:

It's not just Southwest not growing in Richmond, but BWI as well. Southwest continues to under perform growth at BWI. The BWI pie keeps growing but Southwest's slice keeps shrinking. Their market share continues to drop - down to 65% Not shabby, but not the 70% they had. Meanwhile Spirit is now up to 10% share and fast approaching levels that AirTran had. How long until we see a more aggressive Southwest response?

Isn't WN getting 5 new gates at BWI soon?

Jshank83 wrote:

czek6 wrote:

It's not just Southwest not growing in Richmond, but BWI as well. Southwest continues to under perform growth at BWI. The BWI pie keeps growing but Southwest's slice keeps shrinking. Their market share continues to drop - down to 65% Not shabby, but not the 70% they had. Meanwhile Spirit is now up to 10% share and fast approaching levels that AirTran had. How long until we see a more aggressive Southwest response?

Isn't WN getting 5 new gates at BWI soon?

Sort of...construction will soon begin on the expansion of concourse A that will indeed add 5 new gates. It may be 1-2 years before those gates arrive and then Southwest will CLOSE 5 gates in order to fix their disastrous baggage handling system. So, it may be 3-4 years before the there is any benefit from the concourse A expansion.

My personal conspiracy theory is that Southwest is holding back BWI to prop up the over-expansion at Washington National and that growth won't return until DCA fully rebounds and/or maxes out.

enilria wrote:

SANFan wrote:

I think it's safe to say that nobody on A.net expected much on the extension, and I don't think anyone was disappointed!

bb

I think these threads may need to be euthanized. It's been a long time since there was something even interesting enough to warrant a thread.

If the threads stuck to analysis and comment ONCE THE SCHEDULE UPDATE HAS BEEN RELEASED - instead of worthless speculation days in advance, there might be a reason to let them continue.

flydulles wrote:

If I remember right don't they give a pdf summery of changes to schedule?

Were you referring to something like this?

https://www.southwestaircommunity.com/t ... 20AC0FAD12

most annoying are posts that include
"here are all the cities West of the Mississippi that WN doesn't have nonstop service to from XXX" airport
"well they COULD add AAA-BBB, or CCC-DDD or maybe even AAA-CCC and AAA-DDD but don't forget this is a good chance to do DDD-EEE or FFF-GGG and let's not overlook AAA-EEE, AAA-FFF, and AAA-GGG or DDD-FFF and DDD-GGG.

(Hey, a new focus city at AAA!)

OMG it can be a dumpster fire. Please make it stop LOL

LovePrunesAnet wrote:

most annoying are posts that include
"here are all the cities West of the Mississippi that WN doesn't have nonstop service to from XXX" airport
"well they COULD add AAA-BBB, or CCC-DDD or maybe even AAA-CCC and AAA-DDD but don't forget this is a good chance to do DDD-EEE or FFF-GGG and let's not overlook AAA-EEE, AAA-FFF, and AAA-GGG or DDD-FFF and DDD-GGG.

(Hey, a new focus city at AAA!)

OMG it can be a dumpster fire. Please make it stop LOL

If you add that particular user to your foe list you won't see his/her posts. Those posts add absolutely nothing to the discussion.

I agree that we should delay these threads until the schedule is actually released. But it's nice to have discussion about the changes.

I do enjoy these threads. I like to see how WN is moving in their different markets, sort of like a high level WN performance overview. No other airline really runs their schedules the same way, which is why these threads are important. Some speculation is always in order for these types of threads, but at some point, it's always taken too far. It would probably be best to run them like the OAG threads instead of starting the thread weeks in advance. Just my

If you don't like the thread, you can choose not to click on it.

Not surprised nothing is really happening while the wait for ETOPS approval continues.

More screwing over Phoenix. RDU goes to Sat/Sun only....