Will Southwest Airlines at Milwaukee hurt Rockford?
November 2nd, 2009 at 01:39pm Thomas V. Bona
Southwest Airlines started service out of Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport Sunday, with 12 daily nonstops to five destinations.
What’s interesting is that three of those destinations - Phoenix, Orlando and Tampa - directly compete with routes out of Chicago Rockford International Airport. Could those routes hurt RFD?
Dane County Regional Airport in Madison seems to think so A spokeswoman said Rockford would be affected more than Madison.
“I think we have loyal passengers here and, secondly, Madison tends to support the business market better and Southwest tends to be more of a leisure destination airline,” said Sharon Wisniewski, spokeswoman for the Dane County Regional Airport.
Not sure I really agree with her logic. Southwest primarily a leisure airline? Perhaps in the past, but it’s been moving aggressively to grab business travels, and the airline claimed last year it had more business travelers than any airline. While only one of its current Milwaukee routes competes with a Madison route (Milwaukee-Baltimore vs. Madison-DC), eventually it could add more competing routes to New York, Denver, Dallas, St. Louis … several low-hanging fruit on Madison’s tree. Add to that the “Southwest effect” of lowering fares … with AirTran’s ramp up in Milwaukee, too, that airport is going see some real deals that will nab passengers. I don’t think Madison is so safe.
But what about Rockford? Airport Executive Director Bob O’Brien’s oft-stated goal is to create “Midway 2, northwest of O’Hare.” But with Southwest and AirTran - two airlines O’Brien has targeted - Milwaukee seems to have beaten them to the punch. Can Rockford become “Midway 3″?
Personally, I’ll check out Southwest whenever going to a city they fly to out of Milwaukee, but if it’s a choice between MKE and RFD, I’ll stay here if the price is even remotely close. What about you? Going to feel the LUV?
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4 Comments Add your own
1. denny johnson | November 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
first choice RFD……second choice would be MKE. Want to avoid Chicago traffic and fees. Rockford is the best for parking, counter service and a great airline. It would be nice if they could fly to Fort Lauderdale area !
2. Bob Trojan | November 2nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm
First choice for me is RFD…add up all the “hidden” costs like parking, gas, wear-tear on the car, extra time to and from and check-in, weather conditions while driving.
Clear choice is RFD.
3. Sally Hanks | November 3rd, 2009 at 10:33 pm
MSN is going to feel the pain….no doubt about it. Wait for the 2010 enplanement numbers to come out in late 2011….she’ll see.
We already know that RFD won’t be affected, because it hasn’t been affected by Air Tran’s buildup at MKE. In fact, I don’t think that very many Southwest passengers from the Rockford area are going to be diverted away from MDW to MKE.
There is a specific demographic that flies Allegiant, and they don’t want to go to MKE anymore than they want to go to ORD/MDW, even though we all know that MKE is substantially easier. Earl and Esther from Paw Paw fly out of RFD for a reason.
If anything, RFD will benefit from this. No other low fare carrier in their right mind would consider serving MKE at this point. MKE is now Midway North, and nobody has the guts to go against Southwest and Air Tran at MDW. In fact, if Spirit wants to sustain their low cost model, or grow their Chicago market, for that matter, they won’t even be serving O’hare in five years…..nor will they go up against anybody at Midway.
Congratulations to MKE. They have a world class facility that has just transformed itself into Chicago’s other low fare airport.
4. Will | November 6th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Southwest was going after the Burbites that wouldn’t make the trip down the Tri-State, or even think of going down to Midway.
Will this affect RFD? I would suspect we will see a lower percentage of McHenry,Kane and Lake county residents coming out to RFD.
But MSN will be the most affected. They have consistently higher fares than MKE, and only spoke to hub service.
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