Things in the Sky

An interesting tidbit was on Today in the Sky last week:

AirTran would consider a passenger-sharing “codeshare alliance” with low-cost rival Southwest, AirTran CEO Bob Fornaro told analysts while speaking a conference call detailing the company’s quarterly earnings. “If Southwest was willing to talk, we’d certainly be willing to listen,” Fornaro said.

There is one key benefit that and AirTran partnership would give Southwest: large cities that it doesn’t serve. AirTran has a hub in Atlanta and serves Charlotte and Washington (Reagan) as well as LaGuardia and Newark (and White Plains, too). I think New York is the most important of those. While I really like what Southwest has been doing to attract more business passengers, I think until the airline (or a partner) serves New York City, something big is missing for business travelers. AirTran also serves some of Southwest’s big cities to make transferring relatively easy – BWI, MDW, and MCO come to mind first.

Now, the important question is how likely this is. Today in the Sky also reports:

Beth Harbin chose not to comment on Fornaro’s remarks. She told AP that Southwest is “really focused now on Canada and Mexico.” Southwest has already announced plans to codeshare with Canadian carrier WestJet.

(Note: AirTran does serve Cancun according to its route map.)

I think it is also important to look at Southwest’s last codeshare partner, ATA (now defunct). The partnership was similar on one regard as Southwest was able to provide codeshare service to cities like New York (Hawaii was popular too). But it came about differently – it happened after Southwest made an investment in ATA after it declared bankruptcy. ATA was also a smaller airline at the time, I believe.

So, I’m not so sure on how likely this is to happen – but it’s always fun to speculate.