Southwest poised to pass Northwest as nation’s fifth-largest carrier

by Charlie Leocha on June 11, 2008

Southwest Airlines is poised to pass Northwest Airlines in terms of passenger miles flown to become the nation’s fifth-largest carrier.

Southwest is already the U.S. leader in numbers of scheduled passengers flown. In Europe the leader in terms of scheduled international passengers carried is Ryanair.

It is interesting that Southwest flies more passengers than American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Continental Airlines, or anyone else. In Europe, Ryanair beats out Lufthansa, Air France and British Airlines.

Both airlines offer affordable point-to-point flights. Both treat passengers well. Both make money.

It’s amazing when good things happen to good airlines.

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Tagged as: largest airline, Northwest, ryanair, southwest

  • Matthew

    Southwest is by far the best airline in the sky. They are efficient, polite and they don’t nickle and dime their customers. Earlier this week, they had a mechanical problem with a plane. Throughout the entire ordeal, I felt like the FAs on the late flight CARED about us. They called the cabin and asked for the pilots to find out what was being done about our connections. They made announcements IN FLIGHT telling people which connections were being held and how people were being rebooked.

    Conversely, I had the same thing happen on Northwest last November. The GATE AGENTS couldn’t be bothered to help rebook us. We were told to call the 800# which didn’t even know we had been cancelled!!!

    Other airlines would be wise to take a look at Southwest’s business model.

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