Southwest Offers Double Credits (miles) Until Memorial Day Weekend

We've been missing all the crazy double mileage deals that made traveling (slightly) more fun last spring. There have been a few isolated deals we've talked about (double miles from Denver for example) but nothing on a broad scale like last year when the economy was so dour.

Well, today Southwest came out with a new promo offering double credits (Southwest counts credits, not miles) from now until the start of Memorial Day Weekend.

Interestingly, this promotion was announced on the same day that Southwest announced March traffic figures. March looked pretty good for Southwest - traffic jumped slightly but RASM (Revenue per Available Seat Mile) soared 22% year over year indicating Southwest has been better able to align demand and capacity.

How long before the other carriers match? We doubt long - Airtran will probably match quickly. Other carriers may match more selectively (for example, only on routes where they compete with Southwest) but this may be the re-start of the battle for business travelers.

And isn't this a better story than Spirit airlines which just announced a plan to charge for carry-on bags?

Continental: No More Free Lunch - Probably for the Best

Continental Airlines, which has made considerable marketing hay about the fact that they still served airline food for free, has decided to drop the practice.

Clever Continental advertising pieces like these will need to be re-worked a bit but free (airline) food can't be as big of a draw as other airline purchasing influencers such as price, schedule and frequent flyer program.

Back when other airlines began imposing baggage fees, Continental was among the last of the airlines (save Southwest of course) that opted to begin charging for checked baggage. We are told that Continental was looking for signs of share shift away from airlines that were adding baggage fees. Alas, no share shift was apparent so ultimately Continental decided to match the other mainline hub and spoke carriers and enjoy the revenue benefit.

Similarly, it has probably become impossible for Continental to show any share-shift (and resulting revenue gain) from continuing to serve food. In fact, they may have actually been at a disadvantage as some carriers have started to really sell some good food.

From recent first-hand experience, we can report that while free food on CO was nice, it was certainly nothing to write home about. In fact, some of the buy-on-board food has become so good (particularly on Delta) we'd actually prefer to pay a few extra bucks and actually get something that is fresh, healthy and tasty. Or not.

So, we'll see some costs come out and, hopefully, some nice ancillary revenue gains - Continental is projecting about $35M in improved revenue and cost savings - and that's a lot of sandwiches.

AirTran Pinches SI Swimsuit Partnership Away from Southwest

AirTran announced a partnership with Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit edition this morning that culminates with AirTran flying the models from NYC to Vegas after the release of the magazine. Of course there are the usual opportunities for a contest winner to join the models on the flight and more promotional tie-ins are promised. We can only imagine.

But what is interesting about this promotion (beyond the obvious) is that last year Southwest (who had yet to begin service into New York LaGuardia at the time) issued nearly the same press release including a similar flight, contest as well as a new take on Southwest's logo jets - not another Shamu plane. Rather, a full length shot of cover girl Bar Rafaeli. Southwest took a fair amount of heat (others called it a stroke of marketing genius) for the airplane pictured here.

So, was SI too hot even for Southwest, the carrier formerly known as the Luv Airline? And what about SI models flying AirTran - that sounds like worlds colliding. The battle between Southwest and AirTran continues - at least this time it is in NYC rather than Milwaukee.

Boston - Baltimore: Low Cost Carrier Battle Royale!

The Boston to Baltimore air market is starting to look like the Boston to New York bus market with fares almost at the same level of the Fung Wah bus! Of particular interest, BOS-BWI is one of the few markets where all three of the nation's largest low-cost carriers compete head to head - and that will make it fun to watch.

Just last week, Southwest announced an increase in flights (to 7) in the Boston-BWI market starting in March. As you may recall, Southwest recently entered the Boston-proper market with 5 daily flights to BWI as well as several other cities.

Fellow low-cost carrier AirTran has served the Boston-BWI market for some time and now operates, count 'em, nine daily flights in the market.

Not to be out done, JetBlue also began operating four daily flights in September on the same route. And today, JetBlue announced a further increase in service next year by adding an additional round trip for a total of five daily flights. JetBlue's press release takes a funny swipe at Southwest: "Customers in Baltimore have discovered what those in Boston have known for years: JetBlue offers more than just an unassigned seat and a handful of peanuts to their destination"

This makes a somewhat incredible 21 daily flights in the Boston-BWI market. Unreal.

And these are not rinky-dink regional jets. Those have already been driven from the market with the exit of Delta and American over the last few years as AirTran in particular has ramped up service.

Translation of all this: get ready for a blood-bath. Fares, even without a sale, are often $39. We've seen them as low as $29 or even $19 during a sale. And JetBlue has offered a one-day sale with fares starting at $9 one way. AirTran is offering free wi-fi on all flights in the market. And Southwest is offering all the peanuts you can eat....

Will Frontier Get a Little LUV?

Southwest today announced a formal $170m bid for Frontier Airlines, topping a bid by Republic Airlines of nearly $109m. In the announcement, Southwest gave a high level overview of their plans to operate Frontier that sounds quite similar to our post last week in which we detailed a likely scenario.

As we expected, Southwest will maintain service to all existing markets and add several new ones by rationalizing service in overlapping markets. Of particular interest is Southwest's plan to gradually reduce Frontier's airbus fleet as they take delivery of new 737s. The naysayers were concerned about fleet integration - we said it would never be an issue because Southwest would never integrate the Frontier fleet - they would just slowly fade away. Nice to see that Southwest agrees with our prognostication.

Southwest says they will keep about 80% or 40 aircraft in Frontiers fleet. That sounds like the small, 120 seat A318s will be leaving soon, leaving the larger A320s (with 162 seats) and the A319s (with 136 seats) in the fleet for now.

And now what of Republic? Do they really want to market their own airline? And what will do they do with Midwest Airlines - surely that operation isn't quite so swift without the heft that a Frontier/Midwest combination would have allowed for.

The auction is Thursday - we'll see what happens but our bet is that Frontier gets a little Luv...

Southwest announces Boston schedule

Today, Southwest announced destinations and schedules their new Boston flights set to begin in Mid-August. Not surprisingly, they announced service to Chicago Midway (MDW) and Baltimore (BWI) with five flights to each destination. Both MDW and BWI are Southwest powerhouse cities with plenty of onward connecting flights as well as a loyal Southwest base.

And Boston has a loyal base of Southwest travelers as well - they have just been forced to drive to Providence (PVD) or Manchester (MHT) for Southwest's low fares and service. Many have speculated that Southwest might pull down service in these two cities now that they will operate service directly into Beantown's main airport. Fear not PVD and MHT fans. Southwest mentions more than once that the new Logan service is part of Southwest's "expanded New England service." So, at least for now, it appears Southwest will be growing in New England overall.

On a sidenote, we applaud any company (travel industry or not) that can actually use "wicked awesome" in a press release!