Another type for Southwest Airlines?
 

I just read something on a.nother forum. A man is complaining that his town has no air connection to Southwest Airlines hubs, and people have to drive to Dallas, Austin or Houston to jump on Southwest planes. And it got me thinking. We've just seen how Emirates painfully realized that they can't use just two types in their fleet and need more diversity with smaller planes. MAYBE it'd be a good idea for Southwest to get another, smaller type to connect smaller airports to their hubs? Could be Embraer E2 or Airbus A220. Maybe a... what's the Bombardier CRJ called now? Mitsubishi MRJ? Maybe that?

I just can't help thinking that Southwest's 737-700s and -7s are just too big for a lot of "interesting" places, and that stepping away from their strict adherence to one type may actually bring more cash. I don't think they have their own regional subsidiary, do they?

A very rude reply that wasn't called for. Must've been a bad day.

It's not "just him", and from any developed country's point of view, very few places in the US can be considered "less rural". There are only ten cities in the USA with the population of more than one million.

And my question is not what that particular person can do to reach his destination, but whether Southwest could expand its network by flying smaller planes to "somewhere more rural".

The costs involved in integrating and operating a new type into the fleet would be costly and bring little, if any, extra revenue. Besides, isn't SW a point to point operation?

Correct.

In fact even a network carrier would think long and hard before opening a thin regional route that would likely be only marginally profitable (if at all), whether operated by the mainline fleet or a dedicated subfleet without the corresponding economies of scale. And that's after allowing for the potential benefits of feeding its long(er) haul network, which won't apply in SWA's case.

More like a point to point to point to point to point operation. It's one of life's great mysteries why SW has so many multi-stop flights. It would be different if they were stops along some kind of sensible route, like bus stops, or the old days of a LAX-SFO flight (in a DC3) that would stop at a handful of airports along the way. But they operate things like SNA-SJC-LAS - nobody in their right mind would fly from SNA to LAS via SJC, when there are dozens of direct flights a day. It also leads to the odd phenomenon (in my personal experience) of having two flights in the air with the same flight number, when an earlier sector gets delayed and they put on a substitute aircraft.

I was alluding to whether they do connections (with baggage transfers) as such? Most LoCos don't.

Sorry to intervene a perfect start for a debate based on misunderstanding, but aren't these the same thing in different wording...

Yes they are - trust a Finn(?) to have a better grasp of English than an American! :D

They are. I just didn't want to upset Check Airman further by pointing it out and kept my fingers idle. Let's wait for him to wake up, eat his rural eggs with his rural bacon and see if he's in a more rural-appreciative mood today. :)

You may get your wish:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/southwest-a-stalwart-boeing-737-max-customer-eyes-other-jets/

That may be true if you look only at the population within the central city limits, but on a metropolitan area basis, there are dozens and dozens of metropolitan areas with greater than 1 million people. For example, the population within the city limits of Washington, DC is only about 700,000 -- but its metropolitan area exceeds 5 million.

I think they would need to establish a subsidiary airline to do sought after - LocalRural Airlines.
Separate crews, separate strategy, separate equipment. Never going to happen.

Actually, almost 80% of Americans live in urban settings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...us-live-there/

You may realise that A220 is actually the same seat capacity aircraft as 737-700. Even the smaller -100 model is not far.

- A220-300 has similar seat capacity as 737-7,
- The longer A220-300 has more comfortable wider seats, suiting its public
- An A220-300 weighs 4-5t less than a 737-7
- A220 have bigger, quieter, savier US build engines
- A220s are build in the USA
- 500 737-700s need to be replaced starting soon, many have high cycles
- nobody was buying 737-7s, even before the crashes
- even if Boeing offers an FSA in 2028 it will be designed around a 200 seater

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b6a9238e70.jpg
https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/infin...3bcb7a075.jpeg

Equal distance from DAL, AUS, and IAH is about a 2 hr drive to all three airports. Kosse, TX is between 1:55 and 2:10 to all 3 airports. I'm not sure people are aware of how uninhabited the western U.S. states can be. The overall population density, including the significant impact of SoCal, is about 1/3 Europe's population density. Wyoming has 6% of Europe's average population density. Overall the U.S. west has the population density of Norway. Compared to the larger European countries the density of the western U.S. is 5-10%. And individual states can be misleading - Nevada is ranked as average. But 73% live in Las Vegas. The northern part of the state is barren.