The Southwest effect is dead, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with Hudson Crossing.

But it s still unclear how Southwest will affect Charlotte fares in the long term. Charlotte Douglas will still be one of the most single-carrier dominated airports in the nation. US Airways holiday accommodation currently operates about 90 percent of the airport s 700 or so daily flights. That proportion will rise even further when the airline completes a merger with American later this year, to about 93 percent of daily flights.
Southwest will have six flights a day from Charlotte, to Houston s Hobby Airport, Baltimore, Orlando and Chicago s Midway Airport. Travelers can connect to 78 more destinations from there, Southwest executives said.
The arrival of Southwest at Charlotte Douglas was greeted with a water cannon salute from firefighters and penguins holiday accommodation from SeaWorld brought by the Make-A-Wish Foundation to surprise for a sick child from Mint Hill.
At other airports that have switched from AirTran to Southwest, the effect on fares has been small, according to reports. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February that the effect on fares there had been limited, in part because Southwest operated about 2 percent of daily flights.
Gone from Southwest s schedule holiday accommodation right now is AirTran s daily flight to Atlanta. Hartsfield-Jackson was AirTran s main hub, and Southwest is still shuffling its schedule there as it integrates AirTran into the company. Ridley said he couldn t say whether Southwest will add an Atlanta flight back to its Charlotte schedule.
The Southwest effect is dead, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with Hudson Crossing. He said the increased holiday accommodation competition holiday accommodation from a national airline such as Southwest will help consumers by keeping other airlines honest in their pricing, however.
Out of the nation holiday accommodation s top 100 airports, Charlotte Douglas ranks as 29th most expensive from which to fly, according to the most recent federal data available. A roundtrip domestic ticket from Charlotte averaged $401 in the third quarter of 2012.
Fewer than a quarter holiday accommodation of the airport s travelers start or end their trips in Charlotte. That means local passengers holiday accommodation have nonstop access to more destinations than they would if the airport weren t a hub, but fares are higher than they would be otherwise.
A study released last month by travel research firm Topaz International found that Southwest isn t always the lowest cost airline. In a comparison of fares between 100 different city pairs, Southwest was the cheapest of nine major airlines 40 percent of the time.
But Southwest doesn t charge a fee for checking a bag, and the Topaz researchers found that if a bag fee is included, Southwest was the cheapest airline a full 60 percent of the time. US Airways charges $25 for the first checked bag on North American flights.
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