These days it seems that Southwest has started to copy Ryanair more and more, first it introduces priority boarding, then it starts charging for extras.

Now it seems to be following the mouth of Michael O'Leary by announcing that Southwest Airlines plans to open international routes to Europe and South America, although so far there is "no timetable" for the move, Lee Lipton Director-Network Strategic Planning has told this publically at the Routes 09 Conference just ended in PEK. Ryanair is more than a little famous for its CEO describing some of the - er amenities - on the long haul flights he has proposed.

The interesting thing will be a view of what the travel experience will be like. As for the equipment, WN has had a Transatlantic capable aircraft for many years. However none of its 737-700s are equipped for ETOPS.

With big and mid size twins regularly serving the Atlantic and Latam markets this should not be a stretch. 737-700Ers and 737-900ERs are already plying their wares in markets around the world and of course light loaded BBJs have this capability as indeed does Airbus ACJs although today no Airbus narrow body is currently flying transatlantic commercially in ETOPS configuration (watch for someone to prove me wrong).

The launch of Air Asia X in 2008 has shown that irregular schedules integrated into a regular operation can work quite nicely thank you. One thing you can be sure of… this has sent network planners scurrying for their slide rules and laptops.

Cheers
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