WN and LGA make sale, attempts to try to get more slots

[Alex T]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/y!finance/southwest/stories/DN-southwest_26bus.ART.State.Edition1.4aaa1ba.html

An Indianapolis bankruptcy judge approved a plan Wednesday that lets Southwest Airlines Co. buy the assets of ATA Airlines Inc. for $7.5 million and take control of ATA's 14 takeoff and landing slots at New York LaGuardia Airport.

With the sale set to close Friday, Southwest will be a step closer to launching service at the New York airport with a handful of flights.

Bob Montgomery, Southwest's vice president of properties, said the airline hopes to begin service there sometime this summer.

"We should be coming out with an announcement shortly," Montgomery said.

Alex

[emshighway]

Service is to start June 28th. The ticket counter will be between Continental and Jet Blue. They will be using B4 not B2.

[emshighway]

Southwest will be bringing in two planes Saturday, June 27th between 16:00 & 17:30. They will get a PAPD ARFF welcome between the B & C concourses in the CTB. Service starts the next day. A new ticket area which will be different from any other and there is a new baggage screening area which is ready to handle Southwest and Spirit bags.

[T-Bird76]

Southwest will be bringing in two planes Saturday, June 27th between 16:00 & 17:30. They will get a PAPD ARFF welcome between the B & C concourses in the CTB. Service starts the next day. A new ticket area which will be different from any other and there is a new baggage screening area which is ready to handle Southwest and Spirit bags.

A little bird showed me the ticket counter design...very interesting.

[emshighway]

Southwest will be bringing in two planes Saturday, June 27th between 16:00 & 17:30. They will get a PAPD ARFF welcome between the B & C concourses in the CTB. Service starts the next day. A new ticket area which will be different from any other and there is a new baggage screening area which is ready to handle Southwest and Spirit bags.

A little bird showed me the ticket counter design...very interesting.

Isn't it. The other airlines are pissed because PANYNJ told them they couldn't do much with their ticket counters and then here comes WN with a checkbook and PANYNJ is happy to help.

[jetblue187]

yeaa..that aint right that the other airlines cant do anything with their counters..but here comes SWA to steal the show.

[T-Bird76]

yeaa..that aint right that the other airlines cant do anything with their counters..but here comes SWA to steal the show.

It's called business, WN coming to LGA means a huge amount of revenue for the Port as it will attract a vast amount of customers to LGA. In these economic times you don't piss off new customers and its not like the old ones are going to up and leave. WN leveraged what they bring to the table to their advantage, smart move by them.

[JHNA57]

I don't know why I'm so excited, (make that obsessed) with this new service, but for anyone else that may be interested, here are WN's daily arrivals and departures

Time Fl # Dep/Arr Orig/Dest
6:10 3753 Dept MDW
7:20 1305 Dept BAL
9:50 1216 Arriv MDW
10:20 2695 Dept MDW
10:45 275 Arriv BAL
11:15 1540 Dept BAL
12:55 421 Arriv MDW
13:25 3496 Dept MDW
15:40 453 Arriv BAL
16:00 617 Dept BAL
17:00 648 Arriv MDW
17:30 3929 Dept MDW
19:20 208 Arriv MDW
19:45 242 Dept MDW
20:35 1339 Arriv BAL
22:35 91 Arriv MDW

[emshighway]

I don't know why I'm so excited, (make that obsessed) with this new service, but for anyone else that may be interested, here are WN's daily arrivals and departures

Time Fl # Dep/Arr Orig/Dest
6:10 3753 Dept MDW
7:20 1305 Dept BAL
9:50 1216 Arriv MDW
10:20 2695 Dept MDW
10:45 275 Arriv BAL
11:15 1540 Dept BAL
12:55 421 Arriv MDW
13:25 3496 Dept MDW
15:40 453 Arriv BAL
16:00 617 Dept BAL
17:00 648 Arriv MDW
17:30 3929 Dept MDW
19:20 208 Arriv MDW
19:45 242 Dept MDW
20:35 1339 Arriv BAL
22:35 91 Arriv MDW


I thought I posted this already. NW is going back and forth on whether they will have an event on Saturday. In any event at least two of the fleet need to come in Saturday and RON for the begining of service the next morning.

[hiss srq]

A bird says that one of southwests overnighters will be repositioned to USAirways ga(e 22 for overnight parking

[emshighway]

A bird says that one of southwests overnighters will be repositioned to USAirways ga(e 22 for overnight parking

Haven't spoke to anyone in the last few days, I heard they will be using echo and ferrying them across the airport. I guess US Airways is renting them a spot.

[cancidas]

Haven't spoke to anyone in the last few days, I heard they will be using echo and ferrying them across the airport. I guess US Airways is renting them a spot.
such is the plan. might have to buy a p&s and keep it at work for when a special scheme overnights...

[Alex T]

Just wanted to add some things.

LGA will be the first WN airport to have the brand new gates and ticket counters. This will be used as a setting stage to try it out across the system. If it works out it will be quick and efficient (I know two words you probably don't use at LGA haha!)

WN has separated LGA and isolated the airport in terms of operations. Meaning basically, the aircrafts itself will ONLY run a shuttle like thing between MDW and BWI. This way if a plane get's stuck in LGA trying to fly to MDW or BWI, WN can pull another plane quickly in MDW or BWI to continue the flight onwards. The schedule is designed NOT to have a ripple effect of delays for rest of the system. They learned this from DEN and SFO the hard way back then.

Flight loads, I won't give specifics but they are promising out of LGA for first day of service.

LGA-MDW is flying 658 available seats, and 400 of them are booked, at 61% capacity One flight is already sold out.
LGA-BWI is flying 411 available seats, and 262 of them are booked, at 64% capacity. One flight is getting very full.

That is the update here, let me know if you have any other questions! Will be an exciting day for Southwest at LGA!

Alex

[emshighway]

They had someone show up today looking to book a flight thinking they were flying already. The tech guys were still putting the kiosks together.

Below are some shots of the ticket counter.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/emshighway/SWA/SWACounter1.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/emshighway/SWA/SWACounter2.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/emshighway/SWA/SWACounter3.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/emshighway/SWA/SWACounter4.jpg

They are from an iPhone. Sorry for the quality.

[T-Bird76]

Thanks for sharing those EMS! Hard to tell how efficient this looks. I'm leaving out of LGA on the 28th I'm going to have to check this setup out.

[Matt Molnar]

Hmm, I was expecting some A, B, C action.

[emshighway]

Hmm, I was expecting some A, B, C action.

I'll check out the gate tomorrow. My work involved their bag screening room which is between the ticket counter and the checkpoint on the back hallway.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/emshighway/SWA/SWA-SpiritBagRoom1.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/emshighway/SWA/SWA-SpiritBagRoom2.jpg
No the pictures are not SSI since anyone can see this view from the open doors.

We moved the machine in the lobby covering Spirit to the room also so there is redundancies.

The reason Southwest can set up the way they did was because there is no bag belt. Passengers will use the kiosks in the lobby then go to the small counters, scan the boarding pass and a bag tag will be printed. The passenger will then go down the hall to the front of our room where there will be a drop & go. The PAX drops their bags off then proceed to the B Concourse Checkpoint.

I was told there will be a press event using the area on the third floor next to the escalators between the A & B Concourses on Saturday and the kickoff on Sunday.

[emshighway]

Here is the gate. They are still busy putting the finishing touches on it.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j12/emshighway/SWA/SWAGate.jpg

There will be a photo event Saturday around 15:00 hours when the planes come in to be RON. There will be plenty of festivities on Sunday

[jetblue187]

I love the new counters! they look awesome!