SWA CEO: airline acquisitions may be on the horizon

[Alex T]

DallasNews.com

Southwest's Gary Kelly says airline acquisitions may be on the horizon

Southwest's CEO sees acquisitions on horizon in a rough airline atmosphere

12:00 AM CST on Thursday, December 20, 2007

By TERRY MAXON and SUZANNE MARTA / The Dallas Morning News

Southwest Airlines Co. chief executive Gary Kelly doesn't have any offers out to buy another airline, but he expects Southwest to jump in when the consolidation fun begins.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly expects 'an interesting 2008' for carriers.

"At some point, I think we'll probably acquire somebody," Mr. Kelly said in a recent discussion with Dallas Morning News business editors and reporters.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 481bf.html

Interesting to see finally made public. Rumors have been flying that SWA will acquire Aloha, ATA, Air Tran, it goes on and on. Not all at once of course :lol:

The more serious rumors that have rose internally is Alaska Airlines and West Jet.

I see AS for two reasons, it would fill a HUGE hole in the Northwest Area which WN is low on, it would cover the Alaska, and HA markets more, and would also cover many small cities through Horizon. Also this would help pick up more SNA slots, and would allow SWA to come back to the DCA market due to ATA leaving and in a way serve EWR, a NYC market also due to ATA leaving LGA. Don't forget AS serves Mexico as well. From a serving stand point AS offers A LOT to SWA.

West Jet this also has been a very serious rumor internally more so to get their planes, and to have a huge entrance into Canada, would help the connections out of LAS a huge WN base. HA and Canada can also be served via West Jet.

Interesting read folks!

Alex

[T-Bird76]

WN isn't going to make things hard on themselves like they did with Muse Air. I'd place my bets on Alaska, similar fleet, not too many overlapping routes and Horizon still can be operated as an independent carrier like it is now. ATA isn't an independent airline they are owned by Global Logistics. As for AirTran...you'd have large overlap on the east coast really not affording to WN's future growth plans. Alaska IMO is what I think WN wants to become, a low fare full service airline with a simple fleet and intl routes.