United?USairways?

[CarolA]

If planning your vacation consisted of driving 75-150 miles will result in your easily saving hundreds of dollars (even with today's gasoline prices) as opposed to flying into the hub of the legacy carrier, wouldn't you avoid the monopolies which the hub-and-spoke airlines have, and the nosebleed-inducing skyhigh airfares that go with them?

Of course you would!!!

I'll gladly avoid all of those airports if it means saving hundreds of dollars on my airfare to visit most regions of the country, and so would anybody else who loves to travel see the country without having to put up with those sky-high airfares.

No, not everyone would.

Just to give you a clue. I got a DL fare to BWI for $158 out of Atlanta. SW was HIGHER and I have to drive 2.5 hours. SW's airfares are NOT the deal they used to be (once again over on Flyertalk.com there are whole threads detailing instances where SW is higher) SW does have the DING specials, but lots of folks don't have the flexiblity those require.

Do you work for Southwest?

 

[MrMarv]

My last two trips on Northwest weren't too hot either; it's bad enough that the airlines don't serve food on most of their flights anymore, but NW's fleet is the oldest in the industry, which of course tends to mean more breakdowns and cancellations.

I'd like for them to upgrade their fleet, but I'm not holding my breath.

Some of those carriers are NOT very good about keeping their customers informed when things go haywire; I guess they don't believe that 'honesty is the best policy'.

I don't work for SW, but I've saved TONS of $$$$ flying them as opposed to one of the six legacy carriers, and I don't want fly on those very small jets (I'm 6'3") that the majors have started substituting for the larger jets which they've shifted to their far more profitable overseas routes; that also makes it a lot harder to redeem your frequent flyer miles for domestic travel.

I managed to take advantage of that airfare sale they had last week and saved over $130.00 by flying them as opposed to either AA or Delta, who didn't bother to match their airfares.

They've certainly done those of us on the West Coast a HUGE favor by keeping fares much lower than they are on the East coast; thankk goodness that some folks who've been victimized by the monopolies which the legacy carriers have had back there have been blessed by Southwest's additions to their route network over the past 15 years.

And the cities where Southwest has either a majority or a huge percentage (over 20%) of the air traffic has also helped keep a lid on prices, except at airports where politicans have played blatant favoritism (Dallas-Ft. Worth), or flights are restricted by the local government (Orange County) which of course results in higher airfares for everybody.