topDawg said:
and I believe DFW has lower landing fees FWIW. It isn't cost, its WN being scared to play with the big boys. Any chance they can they run to another airport. Did it in Dallas, did it in Chicago.......
Actually, from what I can find, the landing fee at DFW is almost 50% higher than the latest figure I can find for DAL. I can't find a for sure rate for DAL since it was raised to $2/1000 pounds in 2011. At DFW the 2014 rate is $2.82/1000 lbs for "signatory" (whatever the heck that means) airlines. Non-signatory (ditto) airlines pay 125% of the signatory rate.
Also, I don't believe that one can say that WN "ran" to another airport at Dallas or Chicago. WN always operated from DAL and MDW. They didn't run from DFW or ORD. AFAIK, they never served either airport. IIRC, WN did not exist when the 5PartyAgreement was signed to close DAL to commercial passenger traffic when DFW opened. And, as they started with flying only from Dallas to Houston and back, they saw no need for their passengers to have to troop out to the boonies to get a low fare. Just as DAL is 20 miles closer to downtown Dallas than DFW, HOU has the same advantage over IAH. IAH is within a couple of miles of the northern Harris County line, and Harris County is a
large county. They did at one time have flights from IAH to DAL as well as from HOU, but north Houston passengers just didn't seem interested in flying WN; so, everything got consolidated at HOU.
One of the things I have always admired about WN is they have no problem admitting that something is not working and needs to be changed or eliminated. They start flights from Point A to Point B--particularly if some other airline has dropped that route and there is no longer service at all (which seems rather smart to me if you're trying something as an experiment). If after a time the route is not carrying its own weight financially, WN terminates the route and calls it quits. Would that we all could have that much corporate humility. AA lost a lot of money on ORD-DEL before they were willing to admit the route was not working. It's fine and shows some corporate gutsiness to say "There's no LBB-LHR service. Let's see if we can make it work with a 773." It shows corporate stupidity if you are still running the route 2 years later and you've never had more than 50 people on any one flight.
I just worked a flight from DFW to HOU last week. I was amazed at how nice the terminal is now. It was very dated when I first saw it in 1969. It looked like a 1930's bus station.