Gman5000

What's Really Wrong With The Airline Industry - And Can It Be Fixed?

Good article. A few misconceptions about Southwest though.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, they fly 2 aircraft types: 737-300/500 ("737 Classics") and 737-700 ("737 Next Gen"). Just because both types have "737" in the name doesn't mean they're the same type, any more than a 2008 Corvette shares anything other than name with a 1972 Corvette.

Southwest also is heavily unionized and has high labor costs, it's just that their management works WITH their unions to get the highest productivity out of their employees - and with a smile.

Southwest connects a lot more traffic than people think. Go sit at BWI any afternoon and watch how many pax are connecting. And while conventional wisdom is that Southwest is a "point-to-point" carrier, they have several stations that can be called hubs by anyone's definition of the word.

Southwest is a profitable fuel speculation company, that happens to also run a money-losing airline.

Still, a great article that is very well researched.