New York budget-price flights

DALLAS — LaGuardia Airport is the smallest of the three major airports in the New York area, with just two main runways. Planes often sit in long lines on the tarmac, waiting their turn to take off.

So why would Southwest Airlines, a carrier that boasts about its on-time prowess, want to go there? In many ways, it’s because it has to.

Southwest prospered by offering low fares to leisure travelers whose only other affordable option was a car trip. It flew primarily to America’s secondary airports where costs are low and productivity is high because incoming planes can land, drop off passengers, take on the next group and get back in the air quickly.

On Sunday, Southwest starts service at LaGuardia, one of the nation’s most congested airports. This should bring cheaper ticket prices to New York area vacationers flying to Chicago, Baltimore and beyond. But the move is also part of a risky transition that Southwest knows it has to make to win the loyalty of business travelers who increasingly will dictate its future prospects for success.

Southwest outlived early rivals by sticking to a core philosophy: Give people low fares and great service.

The Dallas-based carrier still sees itself as an underdog today, even as it serves 65 cities and carries more than 100 million U.S. passengers per year, more than any other airline.

There still are no first-class cabins and no assigned seats on Southwest, giving it the air of a carrier for penny-pinching vacationers.

"We’re very dependent on business travelers, so we’re not a leisure airline like some of our smaller competitors are,” CEO Gary C. Kelly countered in an interview. He said company surveys show that in normal times at least 40 percent of his customers are traveling on business.


Changing the model
Airlines covet business travelers because they make repeat trips and often pay higher fares for booking at the last minute.
Southwest needs that revenue now. The Dallas-based airline has been profitable for 36 straight years but has been in the red since last fall. Traffic is down and costs are rising.

While it’s cutting flights across its system, Southwest also is entering New York and three other big cities, including Boston’s Logan Airport.

Robert Crandall, who competed against Southwest when he ran American Airlines in the 1980s and ’90s, said Southwest has stuck to a well-defined business model of low fares and low costs at secondary airports.

"Going into LaGuardia is a change to that model,” Crandall said, "but they’ve decided they don’t have any choice — they need the (passenger) volume to grow.”



by the associated press