Southwest Airlines has long been the largest point-to-point airline in the United States, giving it a competitive advantage over airlines like Delta and United by offering direct flights to more cities. However, there are signs that Southwest is looking to move away from that model a little bit.
Earlier this year, Southwest Airlines revealed that the airline would be moving forward with more of a hybrid model instead of its current point-to-point model while still looking to remain the most dominant point-to-point carrier in the country.
This week, the airline appears to have made a move in that direction, ending some of its direct routes.
Southwest’s Point-To-Point Dominance
If you’ve flown either from or to a smaller airport in recent years, there’s a good chance that Southwest Airlines was your only option if you wanted a direct flight without a layover. That’s because of Southwest’s point-to-point model.
Most major airlines like Delta, United, and American use a hub-and-spoke model, which connects many smaller cities to a central hub, increasing efficiency but also increasing travel time.
Southwest, meanwhile, has long operated under a point-to-point model, which prioritizes direct flights between specific cities regardless of the distance between those two points.
Southwest Looks to Move Away From This Model
While this point-to-point model has long been a competitive advantage for Southwest Airlines, the airline looks to be moving away from this model at least a little bit.
In some recent public comments, the airline’s senior leaders made it pretty clear that the airline would be moving away from its point-to-point approach and instead embrace a hybrid approach.
“On Wednesday, June 4, Southwest Airlines senior leaders spoke at the 9th Annual Future of the Consumer Conference, an industry gathering hosted by investment bank TD Cowen. Among many things that were discussed, it became very clear that Southwest Airlines is looking to evolve away from its traditional point-to-point business model towards a more hybrid approach that incorporates greater connectivity into the picture. The airline reaffirmed that it would aim to remain the dominant point-to-point carrier in the United States,” Alexander Mitchell wrote for Simple Flying back in June.
Southwest Moves Forward With This Plan
This week, Southwest Airlines appeared to move forward with this plan as it has cut six different direct flights out of St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
Southwest Airlines confirmed to First Alert 4 in St. Louis that it would be cutting its direct flights from Lambert to Little Rock, Tulsa, Charlotte, Des Moines, Oklahoma City, and Wichita.
In a statement to First Alert 4, the airline said that it was “redesigning east-west connectivity in our network that has traditionally gone through St. Louis to other SWA points of strength (ICT, DSM, TUL to MDW, LIT to BNA, OKC to DAL).”
This seems to align with the airline’s previous comments about shifting to a hybrid model that values connectivity.
