Things in the Sky

As was announced earlier, Southwest is going to begin service between Minneapolis and Chicago’s Midway airport. But it wasn’t until yesterday that a schedule was announced, when Southwest updated its entire schedule.

I compared the Southwest and Northwest schedules on the second day of Southwest’s service – March 9. Southwest will have 8  flights from Chicago to Minneapolis – a total of 1,096 seats. On the same day Northwest will operate 3 E175s and 7 A319s on the route, for a total of 1,126 seats. Sadly, I don’t have older Northwest timetables so I can’t telll if this is an increase from the past. But clearly Southwest means business here as they are basically matching Northwest’s capacity on the route.

It should be noted that Northwest, United, and American all fly to Minneapolis from O’Hare as well, so Southwest can provide some competition there as well for O&D passengers.

Fares are going to start at $69 each way, which is a decent decrease. The Middle Seat Terminal had a good post about fares yesterday.

Overall I’m excited to see what happens on the route. Will Northwest fight Southwest on this one? Many certainly think so. I’m especially interested in the makeup of Southwest’s passengers on the route – how many are O&D passengers and how many are connecting passengers. And of course, I wonder if and how Southwet will expand in Minneapolis over time.