Southwest to assimilate four more AirTran cities

Southwest's assimilation of merger partner AirTran continues to inch along, with four more AirTran cities slated to be converted to all-Southwest service in the spring.

AirTran operations at Charlotte, Flint (Mich.), Portland (Maine), and Rochester (N.Y.) will end on April 13, with those airports converting to all-Southwest-branded service as of April 14.

Southwest already has converted all AirTran service to its own brand at Seattle and Des Moines. It plans to do the same next month in Key West. And Branson, Mo., will switch over to all-Southwest flights beginning in March 2013.

Elsewhere, Southwest has added its own service to a number of cities that had been unique to AirTran at the time of the merger. Among those are Dayton, Akron-Canton, and Washington National. Those airports still feature a mix of Southwest and AirTran service, with no firm date announced for a complete conversion from AirTran service.

Fifteen cities that were exclusive to AirTran at the time of the merger were axed altogether, never joining the Southwest route map. Those cities were Allentown, Pa.; Asheville, N.C.; Atlantic City; Bloomington/Normal, Ill.; Charleston, W. Va.; Dallas/Fort Worth; Harrisburg, Pa.; Huntsville, Ala.; Knoxville, Tenn; Lexington, Ky.; Moline/Quad Cities, Ill.; Miami; Newport News, Va.; Sarasota, Fla.; and White Plains, N.Y.

Southwest announced its intent to buy AirTran in 2010 and closed on the merger in 2011. It has since been integrating AirTran's operations into its own, though it has done so it at a more deliberate pace than has been seen in other recent airline mergers — such as Delta-Northwest and United-Continental.

"The integration of AirTran into Southwest is our top priority and much progress was made in third quarter," Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said in announcing the carrier's third-quarter earnings results last week. "We remain on track to launch connection of the two airlines' networks early next year and significantly optimize the combined networks compared to third quarter 2012."

That latter development will finally allow Southwest and AirTran to sell connecting itineraries that involve a mix of both carriers' flights. That also will allow Southwest customers to buy flights that involve connections to AirTran's international flights.

However, once that begins, all international bookings will have to made through AirTran's website since Southwest's "reservation system does not have the capability to handle international itineraries," The Dallas Morning News writes.

Southwest says it eventually will roll out a website that has international-booking capabilities.

Meanwhile, among other integration highlights noted in Southwest's earnings report:

• Southwest has converted nine AirTran jets to the Southwest livery.
• Seniority list integrations for seven of the eight impacted unions have been resolved.

"I am very pleased with the AirTran integration results, thus far, and anticipate significant financial performance improvement from next year's planned actions," Kelly said in the Q3 earnings release.

The full integration of AirTran into Southwest is still expected to take multiple years to complete.