Houston to have two international airports?

[lunchbox]

http://blog.chron.com/houstonpolitics/2012/05/pro-southwest-majority-emerges/

Southwest wants to begin international flights out of Hobby Airport

[swiftus27]

Sure, but I bet it is to the extent that kcle is an intl airport because there's a dash 8 that flies to Toronto daily.

[Sigma]

Sure, but I bet it is to the extent that kcle is an intl airport because there's a dash 8 that flies to Toronto daily.

Oh it'll be much more than that.

But it will just be limited to Central America and the Caribbean for the foreseeable future.  It's not like SWA is going to fly to Paris with a fleet of 737s, and no one else is likely to care that Hobby is International but SWA.

With the merger with AirTran, Southwest got access all throughout Latin America that it didn't have.  It wants Hobby to be the hub for all their new flights into that region.  And even with starting at just 5 gates of international operations, for Southwest that's a capacity of upwards of about 40-60 flights per day with the pace that they use gates.

[lunchbox]

Also, United is throwing a big hissy-fit about their intent of making hobby an international airport.  They feel it will suck away most of their business from Bush lol

They also threatened to decrease service from Bush if the Hobby Proposal went through, as they are significantly expanding terminal B-South for their regional domestic and the future North for domestic mainline and some international departures.

[swiftus27]

So it's love field all over again.  I can understand UA's anger as they probably helped pay for IAH's expansion

[lunchbox]

Continental, now United, poured a billion or two into Bush, and now they are pouring another 700 mil for revamping Terminal B.

This has been a battle since 1971, when the city decided to reopen Hobby, and SWA called it home.