WOW - SW - what happened?

ILoveMyDVC

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 24, 2000
Shocked
Non stop flights are gone

Prices are 'sky' high

Plane changes (increase the luggage, seat drama, please)

Stupid changes - MCO > FLL? Really?

We have competition, though. New airline in town - hopping over there now
 
Last edited:
Shocked
Non stop flights are gone

Prices are 'sky' high

Plane changes (increase the luggage, seat drama, please)

Stupid changes - MCO > FLL? Really?

We have competetion, though. New airline in town - hopping over there now

Non-stop flights are disappearing because it's not making the airlines money. The more stops there are, the more people can get on and off the same plane. Also, like any other company, you try and get the best results with the least amount of moving parts. So, for an airline, the fewer planes they use, the less it costs them. With fewer planes in service, the airline can raise the rate for those seats. Ever notice that around the holidays there tends to be more flight options? Heavier travel times make the airlines bring those extra planes out.... and you pay for it then too.

So what's the new airline?
 
Non-stop flights are disappearing because it's not making the airlines money. The more stops there are, the more people can get on and off the same plane. Also, like any other company, you try and get the best results with the least amount of moving parts. So, for an airline, the fewer planes they use, the less it costs them. With fewer planes in service, the airline can raise the rate for those seats. Ever notice that around the holidays there tends to be more flight options? Heavier travel times make the airlines bring those extra planes out.... and you pay for it then too.

So what's the new airline?

Thank you for the economics lecture. If only SW had it decades ago... What changed? It's always been that way - that is why other airlines s^cked. SW won the market by doing things differently. I have been flying with them for 20 years on the MCO route. Last time was in May. Schedule changed from May to today (or some other day because I do not randomly check the schedule). That is what is different. 20 years with direct flights on SW - suddenly gone.
 


Non-stop flights are disappearing because it's not making the airlines money. The more stops there are, the more people can get on and off the same plane. Also, like any other company, you try and get the best results with the least amount of moving parts. So, for an airline, the fewer planes they use, the less it costs them. With fewer planes in service, the airline can raise the rate for those seats. Ever notice that around the holidays there tends to be more flight options? Heavier travel times make the airlines bring those extra planes out.... and you pay for it then too.

So what's the new airline?

We have TWO! I only knew about one. Lazy travel habits - SW counts on them
 
I was shocked by the same thing! I can’t get a direct flight out of Newark NJ for August. I was excited that I had enough points for all of us, and now I can’t get a flight. Ugh. Well I guess I’m back to stalking the other airlines.
 
I was shocked by the same thing! I can’t get a direct flight out of Newark NJ for August. I was excited that I had enough points for all of us, and now I can’t get a flight. Ugh. Well I guess I’m back to stalking the other airlines.

Stalking - sort of - because now it's not just about fare. The schedule isn't going to change. What has been a 3 hour flight =/- is now 6 hour minimum.
 


Yeah, EWR to MCO is awful. Right now, United is offering a million choices each day but they're SUPER expensive.

Even Frontier out of Trenton is pretty crazy expensive, especially when you have to pay for bags, seats, etc.
 
Interesting because the STL-MCO flights I booked for August are some of the cheapest fares I've paid in years. Had a choice of two non-stops before 9 a.m. going down and four non-stops coming home. It seems to me that certain airports like STL are gaining flights; some of those are to smaller markets that are losing non-stop flights to locations like MCO as a result and some are flights being shifted from congested transfer points like MDW.

A year or so ago, for example, Southwest started STL-DSM non-stops but they did it by taking away one of the MDW-DSM non-stops rather than actually adding a new flight to the schedule. I am guessing that the smaller airports are seeing fewer non-stops to where people really want to go and seeing them replaced by flights to mini-hubs like STL (where they significantly increased the number of gates they are using). Every flight out of STL seems to be completely full.
 
I'm flying out of RDU and the only non stop flight in the morning was really early. I decided to go for it, because it gives us more time, but I would have preferred something later. The nonstop flights don't make much since. Some of them we could drive to Florida by the time we have to drive an 1.5 hours to the airport, get there 2 hours early and then a 5-6 hour flight with multiple stops.

Whats more interesting is that the nonstop flights are a good bit cheaper.
 
If only SW had it decades ago... What changed? It's always been that way - that is why other airlines s^cked.

Hmm. SW has almost never been the best price, and it almost never had anything nonstop, for my travel. So nothing has changed from my perspective.

And other airlines had more nonstops but now they don’t. They’re all going that way, irritating as it is.
 
Out of ATL they are back to being cheap ($49 for direct flights cheap), after being high last year. I guess it's all cyclical?
In 2016 we couldn't get a good fare out of ATL so we were getting better fares out of our local airport on AA and Delta. Great for us, easier departures. But our last couple of trips have been the opposite. Cheap flights again on SW out of ATL, high flights on AA and Delta out of here. Flights on SW out of ATL are always direct.
 
Hmm. SW has almost never been the best price, and it almost never had anything nonstop, for my travel. So nothing has changed from my perspective.

And other airlines had more nonstops but now they don’t. They’re all going that way, irritating as it is.

We were mostly direct and then 4-5 spread out over the day to two. First and last flights of the day at 6:00 & 7:00

They were competing heavily with other carriers.
 
Out of ATL they are back to being cheap ($49 for direct flights cheap), after being high last year. I guess it's all cyclical?
In 2016 we couldn't get a good fare out of ATL so we were getting better fares out of our local airport on AA and Delta. Great for us, easier departures. But our last couple of trips have been the opposite. Cheap flights again on SW out of ATL, high flights on AA and Delta out of here. Flights on SW out of ATL are always direct.

There are some better fares on other carriers for sure! Even with the fees.

Having just rescheduled by a month, I felt compelled to stuck with SW for now but I can always hold out later.
 
We booked our August direct flights from PVD to MCO this morning, 12,900 points round trip. There were 3 direct flights available in both directions. Same with BDL in Hartford. Yet zero direct SW flights out of BOS. We’ve learned to act fast when the flights are released, because those Mass people swoop in and steal all the direct ones.
 

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