Well, for what it's worth, I think SWA is a hell of a well run airline.
However, I personally do NOT buy the shrink capacity argument. Here's why.
Check out the FAA forecasts. Do they show traffic declining? Nope, they're talking traffic soaring to levels that would create gridlock. Congestion is alreday back.
Now, if you've got a situation where more and more people are demanding your product, what possible long term -- not immediate -- benefit would reducing your ability to provide that product give you?
Reduce capacity, and someone's going to add it. Nature, and airports abhor vacuums.
Don't believe me? Delta pulls out of DFW, and what's the airport doing? Looking for someone to fill those gates, and they will find someone. So Delta pulled capacity off the market, and someone's going to put it right on back in.
You might get a short term pop by reducing capacity, but trying short term fixes are what have put airlines in the situation they are in now. Sure, structural changes are required, but cutting capacity isn't going to help any airline in the long run.
Hell, man, know how many seats were empty on my flights to Vegas? On the two flights combined, there were four empty seats. Now, that doesn't seem like a situation where taking capacity out makes sense, because you've got tremendous demand for a product.
Instead, raise your prices, get more incremental revenue from each passenger, and see what happens. That would be a "paradigm shift," it would create "revenue synergies" and "deploy corporate assets to monetize the customer base."
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