Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co.’s acquisition of Orlando, Fla.-based AirTran Holdings Inc. should not result in any significant reductions in the service that the two airlines currently provide at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, according to airline industry consultant Michael Boyd, president of Evergreen, Colo.-based Boyd Group International Inc.
In fact, Southwest will likely add some service in Milwaukee, said Boyd, who did a thorough analysis of the Southwest-AirTran deal.
That’s the good news about the Southwest-AirTran deal for Milwaukee.
However, the bad news for Milwaukee is that AirTran’s long-range plans to create a major hub in Milwaukee with several additional non-stop destinations is highly unlikely to occur now that it is being acquired by Southwest, Boyd said.
“You’ll see some spokes added (in Milwaukee), but not in terms of what AirTran was planning,” Boyd said. “That’s not in the cards.”
When it attempted a hostile takeover of Oak Creek-based Midwest Airlines, AirTran said it was planning to establish a major hub in Milwaukee. In 2007, AirTran filed a document with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that it planned to transform Milwaukee into a national hub with 74 daily additional departures and 29 additional destinations from Mitchell if it succeeded in its attempt to complete the hostile takeover of Midwest. In that document, AirTran said it would add non-stop service from Milwaukee to: Vancouver; Seattle; San Jose, San Francisco and San Diego, Calif.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Albuquerque, N.M.; Wichita, Kan.; San Antonio and Houston, Texas; New Orleans, La.; Cancun; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Montreal, Canada; Raleigh/Durham and Charlotte, N.C.; Buffalo, Rochester and White Plains, N.Y.; Jacksonville, Sarasota, West Palm Beach and Miami, Fla.; Richmond, Va.; Moline and Bloomington, Ill.; Washington, D.C.; Akron/Canton, Ohio; and Detroit, Mich.
After AirTran’s hostile takeover attempt of Midwest failed, AirTran shifted its strategy to slower expansion in Milwaukee, establishing a smaller hub than it had planned under an acquisition of Midwest. AirTran added service from Milwaukee to several destinations including Seattle, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Denver, Boston and Omaha, Neb.
AirTran was moving slowly toward its vision of a huge hub in Milwaukee, Boyd said.
“I think they would have pursued it as they had planned,” he said. “It made a lot of sense. It would have worked.”
However, Southwest already has eight airports connecting east-west flows, including a huge presence at Midway International Airport on the south side of Chicago, and it likely does not need a ninth, Boyd said.
“(Milwaukee) hasn’t lost anything,” he said. “You’re just not going to get what you might have (with AirTran).”
