Re:Southwest cancels 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours
by nunez on Tuesday December 27, 2022 @11:50PM
(#34157651)
point to point was how every airline operated before gas prices and decreasing ticket prices caused airlines to focus on concentrating pax loads. it's not quirky; it's just not cost effective.
SWA can do this bc they operate a single aircraft type (737), have lower opex (they operate closer to spirit than delta internally and they do things like not allowing full GDS access to force leisure travelers to book through their website), and they keep their aircraft around a while. they also have a smaller network than the bigger airlines do, which further lowers opex.
However, SWA isn't truly point to point seeing as how a lot of their traffic flows through Chicago (MDW), Dallas (DAL) and Houston (HOU) and they have huge hangars and service ops out of these locations.
hubs aren't immune to huge cancellation numbers like this. American and United were heavily impacted during the 2021 Winter storm. Had the storm happened during the busiest peak travel season of the year like it did this year, they would have had record cancellations as well.
SWA can do this bc they operate a single aircraft type (737), have lower opex (they operate closer to spirit than delta internally and they do things like not allowing full GDS access to force leisure travelers to book through their website), and they keep their aircraft around a while. they also have a smaller network than the bigger airlines do, which further lowers opex.
However, SWA isn't truly point to point seeing as how a lot of their traffic flows through Chicago (MDW), Dallas (DAL) and Houston (HOU) and they have huge hangars and service ops out of these locations.
hubs aren't immune to huge cancellation numbers like this. American and United were heavily impacted during the 2021 Winter storm. Had the storm happened during the busiest peak travel season of the year like it did this year, they would have had record cancellations as well.