Southwest eyes overseas flights

Southwest Airlines is studying its first flights outside the United States. That’s according to a Financial Times story http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20060421&ID=5656638 spotted by a Friend of Blog who hasn’t been obsessing about Chinese heads of state.

CEO Gary Kelly made the remarks during a conference call with reporters Thursday, Financial Times reports. Southwest’s partner, ATA, already flies to Mexico and is studying trans-Atlantic service, and “someday” Southwest likely will joint it, Kelly said.

Key Quote: “Roger King, analyst at CreditSights, said the remarks were a clear sign that the airline’s business model was evolving. The pact with ATA calls for Southwest to market and support international flights by its partner by the end of 2009, though this could be amended.”

This would be a big about-face. I asked former CEO Jim Parker about this in 2004, and he told me that “We’re not an international carrier, and we don’t have plans to be in the near future.”

He told me, as Financial Times notes, that SWA has an insanely successful business as a domestic carrier, and there’s been no reason to mess with success.

But since then, Parker has left the company and Southwest has formed its partnership with the struggling ATA. The future, perhaps, is coming soon.

There is an Everett element in all this. Boeing has argued from the start that the 787 would be the perfect jet for a low-cost international carrier, but that type of airline as yet doesn’t exist (although Qantas has made moves in that direction, first with Australian Airlines, then with JetStar). Having a true trans-Atlantic LCC could open up yet another market niche for the Dreamliner.

Oh, and in the meantime, Southwest exercised options on 79 737s yesterday. Here’s a link to my story on that: http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/04/21/100bus_737001.cfm