After American walked away from its St Louis hub, Southwest came in with additional flights. Now, the onslaught continues. Looks like Southwest is making its move on the Gateway City.

Southwest’s May schedule is now out (PDF) and there are some interesting moves. I’ll start with St Louis. The following flights are being added.

• St Louis to Los Angeles starts with 2 daily flights
• St Louis to Nashville starts with 2 daily flights
• St Louis to New Orleans starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to Raleigh/Durham starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to San Diego starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to Seattle starts with 1 daily flight
• St Louis to Houston goes from 3 to 4 daily
• St Louis to Minneapolis goes from 2 to 3 daily

The LAX and Seattle flights are interesting because those are both still flown by American. I believe Southwest actually used to fly the LAX route before, but now it’s apparently the right time to come back in. While I doubt they’ll push American off the LA route just yet, I bet we see American walk away from Seattle one of these days. Speaking of LAX routes that Southwest is re-entering . . .

Long haul is making a comeback. Southwest is bringing back the Baltimore to LAX nonstop flight that it cut awhile back. The single daily flight, along with a Baltimore to Seattle run, will mark one of the first times we’ve seen Southwest go back into coast to coast flying after severely cutting back in recent years. Baltimore is also seeing an additional daily flight to Albuquerque, Buffalo, Denver, Vegas, Manchester, Norfolk, Phoenix, and Raleigh/Durham. Only the Florida markets of West Palm and Ft Myers lose a flight – going into the slower summer season that makes sense.

By the way, those LA and Seattle flights? Those are currently flown by AirTran. Looks like Southwest is making a little run at them to reassert their position in Baltimore.

Southwest also put out its Panama City schedule. They’ll run twice daily to Baltimore, Houston, Nashville, and Orlando. Looks like they’re spreading the wealth around so they can maximize connectivity. Seems like a smart way to go into that airport. I’m sure Nashville is happy to see service to a new airport from the get go. They seem to have been neglected down there for awhile.

Overall, the moves look good. We should thank Southwest for continuing to be very transparent with these changes.

United Learns That Some People Don’t Want Free Upgrades – BNET
United has now made upgrades free for all elites, but that doesn’t mean everyone is happy. They’re taking away benefits as well.

Slight Gains in Premium Traffic in August – BNET
The IATA premium traffic monitor is out again and the news is, well, slightly better? Yeah, I guess so.

Complaints Go Down as On Time Percentage Rises – BNET
This shouldn’t be a surprise. On-time performance goes up, complaints go down. Go figure.

how not to check a bag – Anti-Bride
Some tips and tricks for avoiding having to check a bag.

Frontier Airlines Tries To Diversify Away From Denver . . . Again – BNET
Frontier has decided to add flights between Oklahoma and Florida. Hmm, this could work.

Lufthansa Brings Back Internet Over the Oceans – BNET
It’s been a long time since you could use the internet on an intercontinental flight. It’s coming back.

Road testing the Cranky Concierge – Gadling
Grant Martin over at Gadling took Cranky Concierge for a spin last weekend. He liked what he saw. Read the details.

Expert travel assistance from a travel dork – Musings of The Global Traveller
Another look at Cranky Concierge. Come on, give it a shot if you haven’t yet.

I know I just wrote about Southwest yesterday, but the news keeps coming. This time, it’s not a new city but rather, putting a couple of existing cities on steroids. Both St Louis and Denver are growing. One of these, I like a lot. Wanna guess which one?

You’re probably not surprised to know that it’s St Louis that makes the most sense to me. With American’s pull down and the airport’s decision to get aggressive with incentives, it was only a matter of time before someone would come in and start cherry-picking the good routes. It looks like Southwest is the first to stake a decent claim. They’ve already announced flights to Boston and Minneapolis, and now they’re adding a third daily to the latter before it even starts. They’ll also be starting service from St Louis to six new cities in May.

There will be two a day to LA and Nashville alongside one a day to New Orleans, Raleigh/Durham, Seattle, and San Diego. What’s interesting here is that LA and Seattle are two of the nine cities to which American will continue flying from St Louis . . . for now. (Notice that Southwest is also starting service to two former American hubs – Nashville and Raleigh/Durham.) Hmm, looks like Southwest not only wants to fill in what American has ditched but also wants to push American out the rest of the markets. Smart move.

The other airport receiving new service is Denver, and that’s probably not a surprise considering how bullish Southwest has been. I honestly don’t get this one. They must see something that the rest of us don’t, because I don’t see United or Frontier going away any time soon and their results haven’t exactly been stellar there so far.

There will be a single daily nonstop to five new markets in March – Hartford, Boise, Ontario, Detroit, and Washington/Dulles. In May, LaGuardia will get a single Saturday-only flight (they don’t have enough slots to do more frequent flights). In addition, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Tulsa, New Orleans, Portland (Oregon), Oakland, Baltimore, and Seattle will get one additional daily flight. (All of those start in May except for Oklahoma City in March.)

Of these new markets, only Hartford doesn’t have nonstop service from another carrier at this point. Boise is served by both Frontier and United, Detroit is served by Frontier, and Ontario and Dulles are served by United. They just keep growing this thing, but I’ve yet to see a good justification for why.

I don’t think this is going to require a big expansion – they’re probably just reallocating airplanes from elsewhere again. One, I like. The other, well, not so much.

There is a lot of route news for Florida fans this week, but the biggest of all is that Southwest has announced its newest city . . . Panama City. No, this is not the airline’s first foray into Latin America. It’s the other Panama City. The one on the panhandle of Florida. The one in the heart of what they call the Redneck Riviera. Huh? Apparently Panama City is not exactly the kind of place that I had pictured in my mind (at left).

This is a huge departure from the recent Southwest new city trends. Remember, we’ve seen big city airports this year – LaGuardia and Boston alongside Minneapolis and Milwaukee. This move into Panama City takes a different tack. In fact, it makes Southwest look a lot more like AirTran than Southwest.

The Panama City Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has a whopping 164,000 people. Yikes. But if you add in the Pensacola (2.5 hours away), Tallahassee (2.5 hours away), and Ft Walton Beach (2 hours away) MSAs, you end up just over a million people. All of those towns may have their own airports, but only Pensacola has a low cost carrier. They see 4 flights a day from AirTran. So is there enough demand for this to work? Southwest seems to think so. Or maybe they just don’t care.

How can I say that? Well, take a little look at the deal they’ve put together. The St. Joe Company is a huge developer (largest landowner in Florida, apparently) that’s working on some massive projects along the panhandle. One of those is a brand-spanking new airport that’s rising from the swamp. It will open next May (and that’s when Southwest will start service). St. Joe wanted to make a big splash with the new opening, so they’ve given Southwest a sweetheart deal. Check out the 8-K. (Thanks, Airline Biz)

The so-called “Strategic Alliance Agreement for Air Service” between Southwest and St Joe puts down some guarantees. St Joe will get the following:

• Southwest guarantees that it will keep at least 2 flights a day to four cities (no cities have been announced yet)
• Southwest will share profits with St Joe
• Southwest will not start flying to any airport within 80 miles (that includes Ft Walton Beach), and if they fly to an airport within 120 miles (that appears to include Tallahassee and Pensacola), there are penalties

Those are some pretty hefty commitments. What is Southwest getting in return?

• If Southwest loses money on these routes, St Joe will make up the difference every single quarter for 3 full years (St Joe can cancel if the payment is more than $14m the first year and $12m the second)
• An agreement will be signed between Southwest, the Bay County Tourist Development Council, the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Beaches of South Walton Tourist Development Council to develop marketing efforts
• Southwest will sign an agreement with Coastal Vision 3000 to get free room nights at rental properties to use for marketing purposes

This does sound like a good old-fashioned air service guarantee scheme on steroids. That’s why I say this is very much something out of AirTran’s playbook and not Southwest’s. But will it work? It might. There is a lot of really nice, new development in this area that definitely wipes away the Redneck Riviera name. At this brand new airport, it’s possible that this guarantee will help “prove” to Southwest that it is in fact a profitable market. If that’s the case, Branson must be calling Southwest right now asking how they can play this game as well.

This one is definitely out of left field, but I guess they don’t have much to lose.

[Original image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsclark/ / CC BY-SA 2.0]

July Premium Traffic Shows Gains – BNET
It’s premium traffic monitor time again, and traffic is still in the tank. But it’s not quite as bad, so that’s good.

Delta’s SkyClub Promotion Slightly Misses the Mark – BNET
Delta offered club access to some elite members for a day. Good idea, not great execution.

Guest Posts From My Favourite Bloggers : Brett Snyder – The Cranky Flier – Flying with Fish blog
I wrote a guest post for Fish about the recently announced V Australia/Emirates codeshare.

US Airways and Delta Raise More Money – BNET
Airlines are raising money left and right these days. Might as well do it while they can.

United Goes Back Into Mini-Expansion Mode Domestically – BNET
Don’t look now, but United has started adding new flights and new cities once again. That’s always encouraging, though I do wonder about some of these.

Virgin America’s Improved Second Quarter Performance Details – BNET
Now that the government data is out, we can take a look at Virgin America’s performance in greater detail. Not too bad, but there’s still work to do.