Southwest is prepared to be the highest bidder for Frontier Airlines. The move will make Southwest a dominant player in Denver, only second to UA and not by much. Atlanta will finally get SWA service as part of the deal. The one question SWA is not answering at the moment? Will they keep the international routes? Frontier does serve Mexico and Costa Rica. If they do, it will be the first international adventure for the airline.

The deal has to be approved by the bankruptcy judge. It also has to be approved by the pilots union of both airlines. As always in these kind of deals the seniority and route preferences have to be agreed on.

SWA would get rid of Frontier's Airbuses, just keep the B737s.

I hope they are successful since if they are it would mean SW will be flying out of DCA I believe and that's always a good thing IMO...

Don't get your hopes up on getting SW anytime soon at either Atlanta, DCA or the others.

From what I read SW plans to run Frontier as "Frontier" until they can 'get rid of the Airbuses' and afford new planes. Plus SW is NOT afraid to walk away from unprofitable routes/stations. Which could be why it makes money when the rest of them don't... it's not trying to be all things to all flyers.

I like both airlines, so I hope the deal will go through.

I will be interested to see how the routes change, if any, if this acquisition should occur.

If I were guessing, I would say they stick with what works by keeping their fleet 737's and skip the international routes.

<i>Unless</I>, this is how they plan to enter the international market.

I'm a fan of SWA and hope this works out.

Southwest lost the auction to Republic.

I saw that. Appears that pilot seniority integraton created too many problems with SW bid.

Yep, SWA was unwilling to guarantee favorable seniority terms for the Frontier pilots, which was a required term to bid.

Interesting deal. Anyone know offhand how many Airbus machines Frontier has and what percentage of their fleet? Are their Boeings all 737s? I haven't flown Frontier, but do like Southwest on some routes.

SamH, not sure what deal is "interesting" to you - Republic won the auction. Frontier is all Airbus except for their express affiliate (Lynx). Not sure if this current, but their web site says they have 38 Airbus A319s, 10 Airbus A318s and three Airbus A320s. Subsidiary Lynx Aviation operates 11 Q400s.