Commercial pressures. Holding for Fedex would have added a few mins, maybe lost them their place in the queue, etc. It's not a reason to act unsafely, but it is a factor.

> Commercial pressures. Holding for Fedex would have added a few mins

They spent a minute extra before starting their takeoff roll; it wouldn't have hurt to wait an additional 5 minutes. Commercial flights build in a generous margin for ground ops these days. I doubt this was a factor in this specific case.

> maybe lost them their place in the queue, etc.

They were at the runway already, there's no way for them to have lost their place in the queue for that runway 18L [1].

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/AUSFAA.p...

> They were at the runway already, there's no way for them to have lost their place in the queue for that runway 18L [1].

Sure there is, enter the runway at bravo, right turn foxtrot, left on alpha and join the conga line. Happens all the time at places like JFK (admittedly Austin is not JFK).

>> They were at the runway already, there's no way for them to have lost their place in the queue for that runway 18L [1].

> Sure there is, enter the runway at bravo, right turn foxtrot, left on alpha and join the conga line. Happens all the time at places like JFK (admittedly Austin is not JFK).

This routing appears to require the SouthWest aircraft to enter the active runway with FedEx Heavy on Final to that end, presumably the problem we're trying to avoid ...

In both cases, SW would be well within their rights to say "unable to comply".