I have a good mix of business and personal travel and had been fortunate enough to have SWA routes to my primary "usual" destinations (LGA, BOS, RSW, SFO). I understand that routes need to be profitable to be maintained, but my home airport (MKE) recently lost nonstops to Boston. Not a terrible thing if the stop was in Baltimore; you're traveling in that general direction. Although Baltimore is still an option, other flights now change planes in Denver (?!), Tampa, Orlando or Nashville.
Milwaukee's nonstops to LGA have also been reduced, although admittedly that route does still exist. Options to change planes on that Eastbound flight include Denver (again), St. Louis and Dallas.
Perhaps I would consider these routes if they were significantly cheaper than other options, but they generally are not. I'm not looking to add an addition 4-6 hours of flight time (to say nothing of layovers) for something that is a 2-3 hr flight; having this as an itinerary at a higher cost is not a draw either.
Sad to say that I can't make it work on my preferred airline anymore for my two primary destinations (BOS, LGA). Nonstop flights still exist on other airlines from MKE and are often less expensive than SWA.
I don't expect things to change and do realize the profit wasn't there for SWA on these flights; I did want to make it known that in my case, at least, these changes have eliminated SWA as a potential carrier for the 20-30 trips I take per year from MKE. I'd love to see these nonstop flights (or those with direction-appropriate plane changes) return. Here's hoping.
