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AirTran will take four gates at D/FW
12:09 PM CDT on Thursday, September 4, 2003

By ERIC TORBENSON and DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News


AirTran Airways is the "mystery" airline that will soon take four gates at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

D/FW officials revealed Thursday that the Orlando-based low-fare carrier would move from its current one gate at Terminal E to four gates on Terminal B. AirTran flies to Atlanta and has announced new service from D/FW to Orlando and Baltimore/Washington International Airport.

The gates could mean even more service for D/FW, and it would be bad news for Fort Worth-based American Airlines Inc. and for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc, which both operate a hub here. AirTran already competes fiercely with Delta in Atlanta, and any additional routes it adds here will mean lower overall prices for fliers. AirTran has much lower last-minute fares than larger carriers like American and Delta.

Airport officials said Thursday that AirTran intends to fly to additional cities, but would start with 24 flights a day to the three cities it serves or has announced it will serve this fall. The move will increase traffic at D/FW by more than 1 percent and add more than $20 million in additional revenue from fees and concessions, officials said.





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whoa, if i am reading this right, Airtran will have 24 flights to just the current 3 destinations(BWI, ATL, MCO).

Should be interesting to see what other destinations they add. They should be able to easily operate 30-35 flights

This is great news for DFW passengers. They will almost certainly add one or two destinations from DFW when all gates are occupied.

Well done and good luck, AirTran.

Ya know, Im wondering where they will go also.

Im guessing

8 DFW-ATL
3 DFW-BWI
3 DFW-MCO
Thats only 14


And the rest, I just dont know.

Always shake my head when I see the worn-out line that service by a LCC from an airport dominated by high cost airlines is "bad news" for the latter, in this case AirTran's expansion at DFW being a dreaded event for AA and DL.

What's happening in reality is that FL is doing little or nothing more than to pick up traffic that AA and DL have forfeited by their own choosing. How is that bad news for AA and DL? Guess it could only be spun that way if one really means to say that AA and DL have been foiled again (if only in some small way) -- by a LCC -- in their never-ending efforts to manipulate markets so consumers have no choice but to subsidize their convoluted high-cost business models. If that is "bad news" I hope there is even more bad news to come!

I hardly think AA is shaking in their boots with Valujet having 1% of the departures.

If you think about it, the competition actually stimulates demand between the markets...

I have also been told that FL will be opening maintenance at DFW.

the 717 can be used to add alot of service to the west and southwest since they can't make it there from ATL. the new 737NG's can make it to the remaining destinations plus fly ATL-west.

i'd say PHL/BOS-DFW are possibilities and then some routes out west (DEN, LAS, LAX) are some possibilities as well.

"We love American and they will remain number one at D/FW," said Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, an airport board member.

Funny quote I say its more like Dallas is AA bitch (can I say that??), but anyway I don't think the deal will do much harm AA but I do think and hope it brings much need fare decreases to the Dallas market.

Over the past two years flights to cities such as LAS,MIA,JFK,BOS, and even PHX have gone up higher then the normal, and I think that over time FL or any new entrant to the market can bring the prices to a more normal level.

My hunch is the 24 number (if correct) is total movements.. so 12 departures and 12 arrivals. One could stretch things and say "Well, AirTran has 12 flights in and 12 flights out.. 24 flights.."

Kohflot: As much as that sounds like a deceptive thing for Airtran to do, i highly doubt that is the case. Airtran loves to stack as many flights at a gate as possible. If they only operate 12 flights then thats 3 flights a gate, they could easily get 6 or 7 flights a gate if they wanted to and therefore have at least a total of 30 flights.

my hunch is that they'll add a few east-coast destinations and a few west-coast destinations for a total of mabye 8 or 9 destinations.
Ideally i'd like to see the following happen, but this is just my opinion and could be far from what really takes place.

ATL-6
BWI-4
MCO-3
FLL-2
PHL-2
BOS-2
LAS-1
LAX-2
SFO-2
DEN-1
Total: 25 flights

anyone please feel free to comment if they aggree/disaggree with my predicitons

while none of these are WN routes from DAL, FL is very much running in pastures frequented by WN - who might decide that FL is getting a little closer to their territory than is comfortable. just a thought but it seems like FL is targeting very similar routes to WN in cities where they overlap.

Awwww....fuck. Oh well, at least they will lower fares to some more markets. Not who we were hoping for, but at least AA/Eagle didnt take the gates.

This is good news for sure. And only a start. I am sure we'll see a lot more in the not too distant future. I hope AirTran can sustain their expansion plans and remain profitable for more than just the short term.

I guess this means that we'll have to wait indefinitely for Jetblue eh? DFW is ripe for some "real" competition. I am glad we are going to have one more option with AirTran on more than just one route.

Ok - so I'm not disagreeing with the Dallas Morning News. But, just yesterday, Thursday Sept 4, I was in DFW, and was speaking with one of our ops supervisors, and asked about add'l gates. She said that, yes, they had planned on getting "two" gates at B, but that it had fallen through. She then went on to say that they would be flying all departures from the one gate on E, while trying to get a second gate there (which, honestly sounds more like AirTran to me....)

Just what I heard...

Travis

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that AirTran will get the use of B13-B16. I thought those were currently the Continental and America West gates. Is that correct?
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/6691438.htm

The Dallas Business Journal is also reporting the story but I don't see the press release yet at the airport site.

From The DMN:

Terminal B as of Jan 7, 2004

B2-B12 AE
B13-16 AirTran
B18 Midwest Express
B19-21 US
B23-24 HP-America West
B25 ATA
B28-B30 UA
B31-39 (6 gates) BA,LH, Korean Air, Frontier, Solair (Charters)

There are no gates B1,b17, b22, b27, b32, bb37 or b38

I thought Sol Air flies regularly to DFW, everytime I have been to DFW since they started to serve here, I have seen them.

I know AA and DL is not quaking in their Nikes. There is fierce competition on the DFW-ATL route. Air Tran hasn't made a dent in that route, but maybe the fares will decrease?

This may be a little ways off, but how many gates will be freed up in terminal B when the new international terminal comes online in 2005? That would be very intersting. AirTran might just be positioning themselves for a shot at those as well. If their expansion at DFW is successful, it could be a very intersting 2 years leading up to the international terminal opening.

Solair does. It a bad righting job. It should be Solair and Charters

The full version of the article in the DMN talk about expand for Airtran when D opens. But I thinking it will only be on or two more gates if that. Looking at the 2004 plan when D opens the gates B31-39 (6 gates) will only have Frontier. Notice that HP does have two full gates to themselves. Currently they have to share.

writing not righting

my bad