Southwest Airlines reinforces San Diego, La Guardia, adds routes, withdrawing from smaller airports

Southwest Airlines plans to create additional pressure on Alaska Air Group during 2014 as Delta continues its raid on Alaska's Seattle hub. Just as Delta invades some of Alaska's top markets from Seattle, Southwest is upping competition with Alaska from San Diego - an airport from which Alaska has been steadily expanding during the past couple of years to support its network diversification strategy. Southwest apparently believes an opportunity exists to leverage its leading position at the airport to add both transcontinental flights and service along the US west coast during 2014. It intends to add three new markets - Orlando, Portland and Seattle - and re-launch service to New Orleans after discontinuing flights in 2005.

At the same time the carrier has also outlined plans for the additional LaGuardia slots it secured as a result of the American-US Airways merger. It plans to bolster service from the closest airport to Manhattan to its strongholds of Chicago Midway and Houston Hobby as well as Nashville and Akron-Canton.

The small market casualties resulting from Southwest's acquisition of and merger with AirTran Airways are also continuing as service from Branson, Missouri, Jackson, Mississippi and Key West, Florida is being eliminated. Other cuts include flights from Atlanta to Dayton, Norfolk and Louisville. It seems capacity in those markets is shifting to other points from Atlanta where Southwest can possibly target more local traffic.