Southwest continues de-hubbing Atlanta as ROIC targets start to look murky

Southwest Airlines continues to refine the combined operations it has with AirTran in Atlanta as part of its overall strategy to put less emphasis on Atlanta as a connection point and more focus on creating a rolling schedule in the market that is more reflective of its other top focus cities.

All of the efforts that are designed to reach fruition in Nov-2013 are being undertaken to improve the overall performance of Atlanta in the combined AirTran-Southwest network as the integration of the two carriers continues.

But in the short-term Southwest is battling some revenue weakness as unit revenues during 1Q2013 increased just roughly 2% and fell 4% to 5% during Apr-2013. Some of the weakness in Apr-2013 resulted from the timing of the Easter holiday and system slowdowns triggered by budget cuts in the US. Moving forward, Southwest believes it should post unit revenue improvements during the last two months of 2Q2013, with the momentum continuing throughout the rest of the year.