"Marcio" wrote in message
news:43nji159ddi7re6mja188hafmok6lgib4l@4ax.com...
> Jonathan Goodish wrote:
>
>>In article ,
>> zak wrote:
>>
>>> Well, after today's Chapter 11 filing by Delta and Northwest, it
>>> appears that American Airlines is now the only pre-deregulation U.S.
>>> major carrier left that hasn't seen a trip to Bankruptcy Court.
>>
>>
>>What about Southwest? They are certainly a major carrier, and were
>>flying for several years before deregulation.
>
> "Certainly" doubtful. Southwest is at a point of growth where some
> consider it a major airline while others consider it a regional
> airline. Most in the stock market industry, for example, still
> consider Southwest a regional airline. It depends on your criteria
> for a major carrier: revenue, number of passengers carried, number of
> routes, etc.
>
> To me, there is one distinction that separates a major carrier from a
> regional one: international destinations. When I'm at Brazil's GRU or
> Japan's NRT airports, I see the counters for American, Delta, and
> United. I have yet to see one for Southwest anywhere. With or
> without code sharing, Southwest doesn't fly anywhere but to 50 to 70
> domestic destinations. So, Southwest is not a major carrier, only a
> regional one.
>
I don't know of anyone else's definition of a major US carrier being that
they have international routes. There was a time when TWA and PanAm were the
only international US carriers.
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