Southwest Airlines announces new routes

Southwest Airlines (Dallas) adding to what we previously reported, today published dozens of new nonstop markets for Customers flying the carrier from Dallas Love Field and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The schedule also includes new Southwest Airlines service to an additional Caribbean destination—Punta Cana, Dominican Republic—as well as to North America’s largest metropolitan area, Mexico City (replacing AirTran Airways).

New, nonstop service for Dallas Love Field:

Beginning October 13, 2014, Southwest will offer nonstop service between Dallas and:

Baltimore/Washington (three roundtrips a day)

Chicago Midway (five roundtrips a day, up to six as of November 2)

Denver (three roundtrips a day)

Las Vegas (three roundtrips a day, up to four as of November 2)

Los Angeles (three roundtrips a day, up to four as of November 2)

Orlando (two roundtrips a day, up to three as of November 2)

Washington Reagan National (three roundtrips a day, up to six as of November 2)

Beginning November 2, 2014, Southwest will offer nonstop service between Dallas and:

Atlanta (four roundtrips a day)

Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood (two roundtrips a day)

Nashville (two roundtrips a day)

New York LaGuardia (three roundtrips a day)

Phoenix (four roundtrips a day)

San Diego (two roundtrips a day)

Santa Ana/Orange County (one roundtrip a day)

Tampa (two roundtrips a day)

Southwest Airlines also announced today new nonstop service between Washington Reagan National Airport and both Akron/Canton and Indianapolis beginning on November 2, 2014, increasing the carrier’s service at Reagan National from a present day offering of 17 departures to 44 departures a day by year’s end to a total 14 destinations: Atlanta, Akron/Canton, Austin, Chicago Midway, Dallas Love Field, Houston Hobby, Fort Myers, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, St. Louis, and Tampa.

Southwest Airlines also will add new nonstop service between Washington Dulles and both Las Vegas and San Diego, and to existing nonstop destinations of Chicago Midway and Denver.

Southwest Airlines continues its historic launch of international service with two additional destinations—Mexico City and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic—to be added on November 2, 2014, to the carrier’s network map of more than 90 destinations across five countries in North America and the Caribbean.

AirTran Airways will be fully integrated into Southwest Airlines by the end of 2014:

AirTran Airways flight 5001 will operate on Sunday, December 28, 2014, as the carrier’s final scheduled departure. The evening flight from Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Tampa reprises the first flight the carrier operated on October 26, 1993. Southwest Airlines Company announced its acquisition of AirTran Airways in September 2010, and closed the transaction on May 2, 2011. The FAA awarded the Company a single operating certificate for the two carriers on March 1, 2012, and the Company plans to close 2014 with wholly owned subsidiary AirTran fully-integrated into Southwest Airlines serving a network of 93 destinations in five countries.

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Qantas to use A380 on DFW-Sydney

Qantas Airways announced Tuesday that it will begin flying the double-decker Airbus A380 between Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and Sydney starting Sept. 29. This is the second A380 service for DFW Airport, which is spending $2.8 million to add a jetbridge at Terminal D, gates 15 and 16, to accommodate the jumbo jet. Emirates Airline has announced it will fly the A380 on its DFW-Dubai route beginning in October.

“The announcement of Qantas Airways A380 service to DFW is outstanding news for our Airport and the Dallas/Fort Worth region, because it adds more seats to what has become a very popular and important route,” said DFW Airport chief executive Sean Donohue in a statement.

Donohue and Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price recently took a trade trip to Australia to promote North Texas’ regional economy and tourism. By using the larger jet, instead of the Boeing 747-400, Qantas will be able to operate a direct flight to Sydney. Currently, the Australian carrier flies directly from Sydney to DFW but stops in Brisbane on the return trip. The Sydney to DFW flight is the longest regularly scheduled commercial passenger flight in the world, taking about 15 hours and 25 minutes to travel the 8,500 mile route.

Qantas will operate six flights per week, dropping its Tuesday flight. However, with the A380 able to carry 484 passengers, Qantas will increase its seat capacity on the route by 10 percent per week.

“Dallas/Fort Worth has become an important gateway for Qantas customers since we started flying there in 2011,” said Qantas Group chief executive Alan Joyce in a statement.

The carrier is a member of American’s Oneworld alliance and also has a partnership with Emirates.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/05/07/5798751/qantas-to-use-a380-on-dfw-sydney.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

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Do we have another Airbus A380 coming to Dallas/Fort Worth?

We’ve made a big deal out of Emirates Airline’s plans to operate an Airbus A380 – the big boy of commercial aviation – on its Dubai-Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport route beginning Oct. 1.

But it appears there’s perhaps another A380 in D/FW’s future. We moderated a luncheon discussion Thursday at the University of Texas at Arlington about the past, present and future of the airport, celebrating its 40th anniversary. Our panel included Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins and airport CEO Sean Donohue.

We’ve recently heard that another carrier may be thinking about putting an A380 on its international route into D/FW Airport. We don’t know which one, though. Donohue didn’t tell us which one, either. But in answer to a question from us, he acknowledged that some airline is kicking the idea around.

Shall we start the speculation game again?

We know it’s not American Airlines because American doesn’t have A380s. But it could be Lufthansa, British Airways, Qantas Airways or Korean Air.

Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways don’t fly to D/FW or fly Airbus A380s, but they both will have their first A380s and a D/FW route by year’s end.

Perhaps we’ll have a new A380 operator enter the market like Air France or Asiana Airlines.  But one would assume that it would be a carrier upsizes its equipment rather than entering the market with the need of attracting 400-plus passengers each way every day.

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Low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines is coming to KCI

Spirit Airlines, which offers “ultra low base fares,” is coming to Kansas City International Airport. The Kansas City Aviation Department, city and civic leaders, and an unidentified airline executive will make the official announcement in Terminal C at the airport today. City officials declined to comment Tuesday except to say that a new airline is coming.

Spirit also didn’t comment but posted on its website Kansas City flights to Chicago O’Hare, Dallas, Detroit, Houston and Las Vegas with connections to other cities. No other service details were available. The entry of Spirit promises new competition for Southwest Airlines, which has become the dominant carrier in Kansas City with more than 40 percent of the market. It creates the possibility for travelers that the two airlines will directly compete for business to such cities as Chicago.

The last carrier to start service at KCI was Alaska Airlines about two years ago, the Aviation Department said. Alaska offers one flight a day to Seattle. The largest U.S. carriers not already serving KCI are JetBlue Airways and, until now, Spirit. Spirit, headquartered in Miramar, Fla., uses Airbus planes on routes in the U.S. and Latin America, including the Caribbean. It boasts of low fares but crams more seats, which don’t recline, into a plane. It also has myriad fees including for carry-on bags, soft drinks and assigned seats.

A report released last week by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that Spirit had more passenger complaints than any other U.S. carrier from 2009 to 2013. The report was based on U.S. Department of Transportation data. “Spirit Airlines, which markets itself as a low-cost, no-frills airline, generated the most complaints per 100,000 passengers every single year in the study, by a large margin,” the consumer group said in its report. Spirit executives said eight out of every 100,000 of the airline’s customers filed complaints with the Department of Transportation, which meant that about 99.99 of its customers didn’t complain. The airline said customers who had problems were probably not familiar with its business model.

“Many of the DOT complaints about Spirit are driven by our customers not fully understanding that we offer unbundled fares that let them control how much they spend,” the carrier said in response to the consumer group report. “In 2013, we had a total of 1,021 DOT complaints and served over 12 million customers. While we want every customer to have a great experience, eight complaints per 100,000 enplanements is a pretty small number.”

Spirit, according to its website, was founded in 1964 as Clippert Trucking Co., a Michigan corporation, and in 1974 changed its name to Ground Air Transfer Inc. In 1983, it started doing business as Charter One, a Detroit-based tour operator providing travel packages to destinations such as Atlantic City, Las Vegas and the Bahamas.

In 1992, Charter One changed its name to Spirit Airlines, brought jet equipment into the fleet, and began scheduled passenger service to destinations such as Fort Lauderdale, Detroit, Myrtle Beach, Los Angeles and New York.

Spirit, which is publicly traded, moved its headquarters to Miramar in December 1999. Spirit reported a profit of $43.2 million in the fourth quarter last year, and full-year earnings of $177 million.

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Emirates to put A380 superjumbos on flights to Dallas

Emirates airline will put its superjumbo Airbus A380 on its route to Dallas/Fort Worth, the Dubai-based carrier announced Thursday.

Emirates' first A380 flight to DFW will begin on Oct. 1, replacing the Boeing 777 aircraft it currently flies on the route. Emirates first began flying to DFW in 2012.

Emirates' A380s seat 489 passengers. The Boeing 777-200LRs that Emirates currently uses on the Dubai-DFW route seat 266.

The Dallas Morning News notes that Emi

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