You gotta love Southwest Airlines, Inc.
While most of the legacy airlines are trying to figure out either how to avoid bankruptcy or find financing to exit bankruptcy, Dallas-based Southwest just continues to execute its methodical business plan of expanding its low-cost operations in markets that respond to it.
Yesterday, Southwest bid more than $100 million for some key assets of bankrupt airline ATA Holdings Corp., including six of ATA’s 14 gates at Chicago’s Midway Airport.
The addition of the six ATA gates would increase Southwest’s capacity at Midway by nearly a third. The airline operates about 150 daily flights from Midway and has already announced it would add 25 more by the middle of next year even without the ATA asset acquisition. The company has more than 2,500 employees in Chicago, which is its fourth largest operation.
Southwest is battling for ATA’s assets with another low-cost airline, AirTran, which has submitted a $90 million bid. The Midway gates would give either carrier an increased presence in Chicago, which is the key high-traffic city in the central United States. The fight over Indianapolis-based ATA’s holdings began last October when it filed its Chapter 11 case, which is the first large low-cost carrier to file bankruptcy during this latest period of carnage in the always tumultuous American airline industry.