Southwest Airlines at Tampa International

AIRPORT ANALYSIS: Southwest Airlines at Tampa International

February 2, 2019

By: Michael Gutta

I recently flew on a personal vacation from Tampa, Florida (TPA) to San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO) for some fishing and time in the sun. Given that there is no direct flight between this city pair, I chose a connection through Fort Lauderdale (FLL) on Southwest Airlines. This provided 4 segments on Southwest Airlines, and my first flight on a Boeing 737 Max aircraft, as well as my first time traveling through the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. As with a previous trip, I decided to look at my carrier’s operations at TPA using publicly available data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics T-100 data tables. The last full year of published data is from 2017, and as with last time, the 3 areas I wanted to study were: the number of passengers by destination, the load factor by destination, and the aircraft type by departure. In reviewing the available data, I ignored any seasonality effects (month-to-month variation), meaning I looked at the average load factor for the full year. Additionally, I only looked at departing passengers, so the total number of passengers served would be approximately double (departing and arriving).

In 2017, Southwest Airlines completed flights to a total of 53 destinations of out Tampa, though a number were very likely due to repositioning aircraft or special flights and charters. Thirty-six cities received regularly scheduled service with over 10,000 departing passengers. In total, an average of 9,600 passengers departed Tampa on 77 departures each day. The annual total was over 3.5 million departing passengers and over 28,000 departures. The full list of destinations sorted by daily departing passengers is shown below.

In 2017, the top 4 destinations by both number of departures and by passengers was Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago (Midway), and Fort Lauderdale. Baltimore (BWI) was in a resounding first place with an average of just over 900 daily departing passengers and over 7 daily departures. Average daily departures by destination are shown below.

Since the 2017 calendar year closed, several changes to the destination list have been made, all additions. The top 36 destinations listed above all remain intact, with Rochester and Grand Rapids being seasonal destinations. Several notable destinations have been added since 2017 ended including:

·       San Diego (SAN) on January 8, 2018

·       Detroit (DTW) seasonal on March 10, 2018

·       Omaha seasonal on March 10, 2018

·       Los Angeles (LAX) on August 7, 2018

·       Cleveland seasonal on March 9, 2019 (planned)

·       Richmond seasonal on August 10, 2019 (planned)

The second item I chose to look at was the load factor for each destination. Load factor is a leading indicator of a route’s viability, though the fare price is just as important. The leading destination by load factor was Philadelphia, and the trailing destination was Havana. The top seven destination with highest load factors faced competition, while only 2 of the 8 destinations with lowest load factors faced competition.

The last component of this study was to see which aircraft types Southwest flew for routes to and from Tampa. Southwest Airlines was not expected to be terribly interesting for this question, but with ongoing fleet changes including the retirement of the Boeing 737-300 and the introduction of the Boeing 737 Max 8 in 2018, I decided to review the data for 2017.

This review of Southwest Airlines at Tampa International Airport left me with two main questions: 1) How quickly will the fleet mix change with the ongoing additions of Boeing 737 Max aircraft, and 2) What destinations could TPA see next? As mentioned previously, 2018 saw the introduction of the Max 8 into Southwest’s fleet, but the type will continue to be added in large numbers over time. Secondly, there are still several cities that fans would love. The San Francisco area of California is likely at the top of the list. United Airlines began serving Tampa to San Francisco (SFO) on February 16, 2017 and has announced plans to increase the service to twice daily. Orlando (MCO) has Southwest service to Sacramento, San Jose, and Oakland. A Southwest connection to the Bay Area 1) would serve a high demand city-pair and 2) has already been successful for another Florida city for Southwest. A second possible West Coast destination is Portland, Oregon. This city is not currently served from Tampa by any airline and would be the second longest domestic flight only after Alaska Airlines’s flight to Seattle. Looking at the East Coast markets that Southwest already serves, only three cities appear as possible additions, though none seem especially likely. Charlotte is by far the largest East Coast market not served by Southwest from Tampa, but Charlotte is dominated by American Airlines, and Southwest does not have a large presence at CLT. Cincinnati may be the most likely new destination east of the Mississippi given Southwest’s strong presence in most other secondary Midwest cities such as Indianapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Louisville, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. Cincinnati to Tampa is currently already served by Delta and Frontier, however. Lastly on the East Coast is Norfolk. This is also a smaller market, and one that is served by Frontier with a seasonal service. Though new destinations may be hard to come by, Southwest will likely continue to hold on as the number 1 carrier at TPA through larger aircraft and frequency for the foreseeable future.

Let me know your thoughts on this blog post and potential future topics involving the Tampa International Airport, Southwest Airlines, or really anything aviation related.

Data compiled for the report and figures above came from the USDOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics T100 Tables:

• https://www.transtats.bts.gov/Tables.asp?DB_ID=111
• https://www.wfla.com/news/hillsborough-county/southwest-airlines-launches-daily-nonstop-flights-to-los-angeles/1350699198
• https://www.abcactionnews.com/lifestyle/taste-and-see/southwest-adds-new-nonstop-flights-from-tampa-to-san-diego
• https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2018/03/08/southwest-airlines-adds-5-non-stop-routes-grows-phoenix/407246002/
• https://www.swamedia.com/releases/release-6ef4ac045e1f792fbc952ffc65061bc3-spring-forward-southwest-airlines-gets-ready-for-spring-break-with-more-nonstop-routes
• https://www.swamedia.com/releases/release-bc94d941a090ea44998912da1f124964-southwest-airlines-extends-published-flight-schedule
• https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/airlines/tampa-international-airport-lands-direct-flight-to-san-francisco/2286719
• https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/airlines/Another-United-Airlines-Tampa-to-San-Francisco-flight-opens-possibilities-for-business-travelers-and-those-heading-to-Asia_172568436