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Southwest is an anomaly among airlines. They are coach class only, have no international routes, 80% of their bookings are done directly with them online, are no frills and always have been, and for the most part do not fly into major airports, although that is changing.
Widebody service is drastically down in every airport in the USA. It is now common to even fly on a 737 nonstop coast to coast. I have flown several times in the past 2 years on Alaska Airlines nonstop Portland to Boston on a 737. Its the same type aircraft Southwest uses on its flights.
The ABQ Sunport is alot more busy than I would have expected. thats a good sign. I know I have flown from Portland to Tampa on Southwest with a stop in ABQ. Southwest uses ABQ for a mini hub in some respects. So don't feel bad, up here in Portland we have international flights to Europe and Asia and a number of coast to coast nonstops. We don't have any aircraft bigger than a 757 on domestic routes either. The only widebodies are the International flights.
Those were L-1011s my father tells me. I think the choice of aircraft was based primarily on hot and high performance and less so on capacity, although, these widebodies were on pre-deregulation schedules I believe. I think they mated with the terminal at the C gates. TWA's Ambassador's lounge was near the C gates and the largest baggage claim (at least now) is adjacent to it.
ABQ does have regular commercial widebody service. I've seen A310Fs but mostly 767-200PFs of UPS and FedEx.
i lived there for 4 years. i'd consider it mid sized. it was ranked the 34th largest city. it has likely shrunk in the past couple of years. their economy was hit worse than pretty much anywhere in the country.
Sorry to bump an old thread, however, now that Northwest has been integrated into Delta, I think this brings up a good point: Delta has inherited a fleet of Boeing 757-300s from Northwest. The 757-300 is an extended version of the 757, seating 223 passengers in the Delta/Northwest configuration. I was thinking, could it be possible that Delta may eventually fly them into ABQ? I think Delta could fill a few 757-300s during the Balloon Fiesta.
Usually, the flights during the Balloon Fiesta period are upgauged at the last minute, so maybe if there are enough bookings to fill a 753, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
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