Thursday, Jan. 6, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.
Southwest Airlines isn't saying whether it will fly directly between Las Vegas and Pittsburgh when it begins service to the Pennsylvania city in May.
But based on the airline's track record and its love affair with the city, nonstop flights between Pittsburgh International Airport and McCarran International Airport would be a safe bet.
Southwest announced Wednesday that Pittsburgh would be the airline's 60th city. But company executives wouldn't say from where the service would be offered.
"It will be a modest number (of flights) to begin with," said Gary Kelly, Southwest's chief executive, in a conference call in which he discussed some of the details of the new service. "But once we get started there, we're obviously hopeful the market responds and we can add more aircraft aggressively."
Pittsburgh isn't a monster market for Las Vegas, but Southwest's past strategy would suggest that there would be enough appeal for the city to make the list of cities getting nonstop flights.
Pittsburgh currently ranks 32nd among Las Vegas' top 50 markets, said Erika Yowell, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the LVCVA say about 135,000 people flew nonstop between Pittsburgh and Las Vegas on existing service on US Airways and on charter flights in 2003.
But Las Vegas has been a success story for Southwest.
McCarran is Southwest's largest station, with the airline saying it has 195 daily departures to 49 cities. It's also the McCarran's busiest carrier, providing 35.5 percent of the 73,810 seats that come into the Las Vegas market daily.
In a recent interview, Kelly said Las Vegas holds broad appeal for its customers and that the airline would always be watching for new opportunities to grow at McCarran.
In Southwest's most recent new-city roll-outs to East Coast destinations, a nonstop Las Vegas flight has always been on the schedule. Among the 49 cities from which Southwest flies nonstop from Las Vegas are Philadelphia, which Southwest introduced last May, Norfolk, Va., and Manchester, N.H.
Philadelphia has been good to Southwest. The airline said when it initiated nonstop service between Philadelphia and Las Vegas, Phoenix, Chicago, Orlando and Tampa, Fla., and Providence, R.I., traffic on the routes increased by more than 51 percent and fares fell by more than 37 percent.
Several analysts say Southwest's decision to fly to Pittsburgh may be the death knell for US Airways, which currently has the only nonstop service between Pittsburgh and Las Vegas with two flights a day.
"That's the nail in the coffin, that's the end of US Airways," said Mike Boyd, president of The Boyd Group, an airline consultant based in Evergreen, Colo.
Prior to Southwest's announcement, Boyd said US Airways' high-profile sick-out by employees and the mishandling of thousands of bags over the Christmas holiday gave the company a public relations black eye that would be hard to recover from. The airline currently is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Kelly said in Wednesday's conference call that Southwest's Pittsburgh bid was not a swipe at US Airways, which has hub strongholds in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Charlotte, N.C., but an opportunity to grow.
The growth bid was the second major Southwest initiative in a month. In December, Southwest acquired an interest in bankrupt ATA Holdings Corp.'s ATA Airlines. While the initial benefit of that deal was to lock in additional gate space for Southwest at Chicago's Midway Airport, the airline confirmed plans to begin code-sharing with ATA.
Under most code-sharing agreements, airlines authorize their partners to sell seats on each other's planes.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Southwest may consider code-sharing flights to and from Las Vegas, but a spokeswoman for the airline said Wednesday that it hasn't firmed any plans. The Journal also speculated that through the code-share agreement with ATA, Southwest could someday begin selling tickets on ATA to Hawaii.
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