Southwest announces ATA code share details

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

Southwest Airlines unveiled the first details of its code share agreement with ATA Airlines on Thursday, an arrangement that will result in one-stop service between Las Vegas and Boston, Washington's National Airport, New York's LaGuardia Airport, Newark, N.J., and the Florida cities of Fort Myers and St. Petersburg.

Travel experts will have a better idea of what the agreement will mean for Las Vegas on Sunday when the two airlines post fares for the various flights that will be offered.

Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly said in a conference call that Las Vegas is still under consideration as a code share transfer point in the future, but the airline only announced a series of flights that would use Chicago's Midway Airport for transfers on Thursday.

Under the code share agreement, Southwest and ATA would market and sell tickets through their respective outlets on several routes. Passengers would fly to Chicago on one airline, then transfer to the other for the rest of the journey. Baggage also would be transferred from one airline to the other.

For example, if a tourist in Boston wanted to fly to Las Vegas, he could book the fare through ATA or Southwest, fly ATA from Boston to Chicago, then Southwest from Chicago to Las Vegas. Southwest currently offers 10 round trips a day between Midway Airport and McCarran International Airport.

It's the first time that Southwest -- the busiest commercial passenger carrier at McCarran with 195 daily flights -- entered a code share agreement with another airline. Southwest's initial interest in ATA was to acquire some of its gates at Midway Airport, which the airline is expanding into a new stronghold.

Southwest officials said when they first announced the agreement with ATA that it would investigate developing a West Coast airport for additional code share flights. Kelly said the airline probably would make an announcement about that in the latter half of the year. It is studying what airport would make the most sense for transfers, considering factors like where the two airlines' facilities are within the airports.

At McCarran, Southwest occupies Terminal 1's C gates while ATA is housed at Terminal 2. Airport officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday's announcement.

Kelly, who said the two airlines each expect to reap about $50 million a year in additional revenue as a result of the agreement, announced that each partner may offer different prices on the same route. He added that Southwest customers would begin seeing the ATA routings on the company's Internet site and could begin buying tickets on Sunday and that service on those flights would begin Feb. 4.

"It's a wonderful way for us to capture some incremental revenue," Kelly said. "We're talking about a relatively modest number of flights. If we pick up a few passengers per flight, we'd be happy with those levels."

Kelly said both airlines have received calls about whether the airlines would eventually tie their frequent-flier programs together. He said the companies are considering their options, especially since Southwest's Rapid Rewards members would want to use free tickets earned on Southwest to fly to Hawaii on ATA.