Methinks they doth interpret too much. The world seems to think that suddenly it's going to get a lot cheaper to fly from the Twin Cities now that Southwest says it plans a few roundtrips between MSP and Chicago's Midway Airport, starting next March. If anything, we fear, fares at Minneapolis/St. Paul are about to go up, because the only carrier now providing competitive discipline for dominant Northwest at the Twin Cities, Sun Country, is in a fight for its life and is likely to shrink if not disappear. In fact, Sun Country went into Chapter 11 reorganization on Monday night.
Our take is that Southwest's chief executive, Gary Kelly, is telling the truth when he says that the new route is really an extension of the carrier's hub offerings from Midway. And bear in mind that when AirTran tried flying the MSP-MDW route, it last about two years before it pulled out. You can hear Left Field talk about this on a podcast
here.
