Jaunted

Southwest’s increased flight schedule out of BWI will include two additional daily round-trip flights to Boston. That will give Southwest a total of seven daily round-trip flights on the Boston-BWI route, which has became a focus point for low-cost competition when JetBlue began flying the route last month... AirTran's March schedule shows nine daily round-trip flights between the airports while JetBlue's schedule shows four daily round trips between BWI and Boston.

That means there will be 20 dailies between Boston and Baltimore, all divided among the nation's biggest three largest low cost carriers. That virtually guarantees a price war, with all of the benefits that those usually bring to customers. There's a point, though, at which this becomes counterproductive. Southwest just reported a 3rd quarter loss and says business travel isn't picking up any time soon. As much fun as we're having watching these three go after each other—and to be honest, watching the price/wifi/perks maneuvering really is kind of entertaining—the overall health of the industry matters too.

The Boston Globe also covered the new routes as a good news/bad news kind of thing. They're obviously pleased that Boston has become such a buzzing center of LCC competition even while airline travel everywhere else is tumbling. They pointed out, though, that some of this has to do with how there's nowhere else left to fight over. Many regions and point-to-points are dominated by entrenched airlines that are so far ahead it would be hard for anyone to break in. But profits are still tumbling everywhere and something's got to give.

[Photo: NOAA / Aps / Wiki Commons]

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· Southwest [Jaunted]
· Boston Logan [Jaunted]