For those of you hoping that Southwest Airline might have a big impact here in Charlotte, this is most definitely not a good sign: The airline pushed pack delivery of 30 Boeing 737-800s from 2013 and 2014 to 2017 and 2018. And a quote via Bloomberg:
“We’re more conservative right now in our ambitions with respect to expansion,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said today, following the company’s annual shareholder meeting. “Right now we’re very focused on hitting our profit target. We’ll have plenty of aircraft in future years to be able to grow the airline.”
That is, of course, if they opt to take those aircraft in future years as scheduled and use them to grow the fleet and not simply as replacements for older, smaller planes. Neither is a given.
