Austin Airport Arms Race: After Delta Expands To 29 Cities, Southwest Threatens To Retaliate With 200 Departures A Day
Delta Air Lines is growing to 29 destinations out of Austin. Delta currently flies to 25 destinations from Austin. Along with their regional partners, they operate 22% of flights and offer 19% of seats out of the airport.
They’re number two behind Southwest, which offers 39% of flights and 41% of seats. The two carriers are duking it out to be anchor tenant for the new airport lease and use agreement as a new concourse gets built. Delta says they see themselves growing to Southwest’s current size in Austin.
But Southwest isn’t sitting still. They think they could grow by 50%. Austin Business Journal quotes Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan: (HT: Enilria)
[O]ur intent is to continue to grow our share of the market here…People are flocking to Austin because of the business environment and opportunities. We’re going to move capacity where the opportunity is, and that growth is here.
The ability to grow from 130 to well over 200 means we could just serve a lot more cities, a lot more frequency…Where we’re headed would make Austin the largest airport and largest service we have in the whole state of Texas.