Posted on 04/04/2008 8:09:08 PM PDT by buccaneer81
The 733 and 73G are interchangeable for all but the longest routes. They have the same number of passengers and the same number of cabin crew. The 735 fleet is mostly used for short haul in Texas and neighboring states and carries 15 fewer passengers. Southwest figures they save money by not having to support flying multiple aircraft types. They don't need multiple sets of spares parts at the airports where they operate, and they can buy spare parts in large quantities.
If Southwest eventually decides they need to do their own flying to Hawaii, they might buy the 737-900ER. It has the range to reach HNL from the west coast, but can carry enough extra passengers to make it worthwhile to add a fourth flight attendant. It would also be a good plane for flying on trascontinental flights. I wonder if with the demise of Alhoa, they might be interested in flying interisland routes in Hawaii.
$10 bucks a ticket? Sheesh. Reminds me of the commercial “I’ll buy the gas, you buy the food”. You can’t even start a plane for $10 per passenger. Heck, the security fee is more than that.
I do agree that if Southwest Airlines (WN) does decide to fly on its own to Hawaii, they will buy the 737-900ER. Not only will it fly to Honolulu, Kahului on Maui, and Kona on the “Big Island” from Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix, but also fly long USA transcon routes on Southwest’s schedule.
Unless you got the $10 tickets, you could find cheaper tickets with Southwest or something since you had to purchase a ticket for every single stop you made.......Skybus did not give round-trip tickets. That was annoying.
That said, I wish JetBlue would fly in the Midwest. The arrogant bastards are only on the coasts.
They sure did. Didn’t you read the papers?
I wonder if Southwest would be interested in buying Aloha? Aloha has seven 737-700’s that they could use in their network. I wonder if Southwest still owns some of their 737-200 fleet that they retired a couple of years ago. They were kept in much better condition on the inside than what I hear about the Aloha planes. If so, the old Southwest 737-200’s could be used for interisland service till a suitable replacement can be found that can handle the very short interisland flights and turnarounds.
They flew into Columbus for about a year. Limited service to Boston and JFK. Alas, they couldn't make it work.
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