Keep Southwest Airlines in Wichita

The Wichita City Council and Sedgwick County Commission just signed off on what is expected to be the final affordable airfares agreement, ensuring Southwest Airlines can draw down $6.5 million to offset losses from its local service through next June.

But then what? The lack of a certain answer is unnerving.

The state has budgeted no money for the affordable airfares program beyond the $4.75 million for fiscal 2016, and neither the City Council nor the County Commission proposed extending the subsidies as the latest agreement was debated and approved in recent days. The city and county each contribute $875,000.

Certainly nobody wanted or expected Wichita air service to be subsidized forever when the program started in 2002 with AirTran Airways and Frontier Airlines. It pains many in this free-market town to see tax dollars going to any company – let alone one like Southwest that earned a record $1.1 billion in 2014, the carrier’s 42nd consecutive year of profitability.

And when Southwest entered the Wichita market in 2013 in the wake of its purchase of AirTran, its executives made clear they viewed subsidies as transitional and expected the local service would be profitable within three years.

But two years into its time in Wichita, Southwest has tapped every dollar available to offset losses.

“Can I guarantee that Southwest will stay in the market if we fail to give them another revenue guarantee? No, I cannot. Southwest has made no assertions one way or another,” Chris Chronis, the county’s chief financial officer, told county commissioners last week.

Southwest hasn’t helped Wichita air service in every direction, and its schedule could be more business-friendly.

But the stakes are high. Chicago and Dallas fares declined 22 and 54 percent, respectively, after Southwest started serving ICT, while passenger counts soared on those routes.

The effects of Southwest’s quick exit would be just as dramatic. A county report pointed to how fares to Atlanta and Denver spiked 61 and 87 percent, respectively, after AirTran and Frontier flights ended in 2013 and 2012. If Southwest eliminates routes or exits the market, the low fares it leverages across those routes will disappear as well.

And because of airline mergers and bankruptcies, there is no ready replacement for Southwest.

What can Wichitans do to ensure that their sparkling new Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport doesn’t lose Southwest in a year or two, or see it curtail routes or flights?

Certainly local and state leaders should stay as engaged as possible with the carrier – and make a pilgrimage to the Dallas office of Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, if necessary, like the one in early 2012 that helped sell Southwest on ICT.

But the surest way to secure Southwest’s continued low-fare service to Wichita is for as many people as possible to fly the airline as much as possible. As public subsidies wind down, the public’s support for Southwest must surge.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published July 14, 2015 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Keep Southwest Airlines in Wichita."