Following on its acquisition of AirTran Airways, Southwest Airlines said Monday it will launch service at the nation's busiest airport, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, including a one-stop flight there from Dallas Love Field to the Big Peach.
The Dallas-based airline will offer 15 daily flights to Austin, Houston Hobby, Baltimore, Denver and Chicago's Midway Airport. The service will start Feb. 12, with introductory fares as low as $79 each way. The service marks another step toward Southwest's integration of AirTran, whose largest hub is in Atlanta. Southwest is operating AirTran as a separate airline but plans to fully fold AirTran into Southwest within a few years.
By adding flights to Atlanta, Southwest passengers can connect to AirTran flights once the two airlines can codeshare flights, which is expected by mid-2012, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said.
"We will be lowering fares by 30 percent on average," Kelly said in an interview. "For the Dallas metro area, we will be serving Love Field to Atlanta for the very first time."
The service from Love Field will start three months after Southwest ends AirTran's six daily flights to Atlanta from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, and should keep fares down on that route. The DFW flights are being stopped to comply with requirements of the 2006 Wright Amendment compromise, which requires Southwest to give up gates at Love Field if it continues operations at DFW.
Kelly said Southwest will offer its service from Love Field to Atlanta with a stop in Austin or Houston, and he expects it will add to the company's revenue out of the Dallas airport. In 2010, Southwest said it generated $216 million in revenue from one-stop routes, which the Wright compromise allowed it to add.
Kelly said that the capacity to serve Atlanta will come from scheduling adjustments in the winter. He expects next year's overall capacity to be the same as or slightly lower than 2011 as AirTran planes are taken out of service to be converted to Southwest.
