Southwest will join the fray in the LAX-SFO battleground

Southwest Airlines, which just kicked off new service at San Francisco International Airport, said it plans to jump into the crowded market between SFO and Los Angeles International starting November 4, with eight daily roundtrips. Long a stronghold of United and American, with a lesser presence by Alaska Airlines, the busy SFO-LAX corridor has been getting more competitive recently even without Southwest. Last year, Delta moved into the market with several daily Delta Connection regional jet flights, designed to feed its growing hub at LAX for connecting traffic into Mexico and Latin America. And in early August, new low-cost entrant Virgin America made San Francisco-LAX one of its inaugural routes (along with SFO-JFK), operating five daily roundtrips in the intra-California market. The announcement by Southwest marks a deviation from that low-cost airline’s historic strategy, which has been to avoid head-to-head competition with the majors by flying to secondary airports whenever possible – e.g., Chicago Midway instead of O’Hare; Baltimore/Washington instead of National or Dulles. Indeed, Southwest already has a substantial operation across the bay from SFO at Oakland, from which it provides multiple flights to the Los Angeles area – not only to LAX, but also to Burbank and Ontario. Southwest kicked off its return to SFO this week with seven flights a day to Las Vegas, eight to San Diego and three to Chicago Midway. Southwest said it will offer introductory SFO-LAX fares as low as $39 each way with a 21-day advance purchase. That undercuts Virgin America’s inaugural fares of $44 each way. In response to the growing encroachments on its San Francisco turf, United Airlines has come out with a frequent flyer promotion, giving double miles through mid-November on routes between SFO and Burbank, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Ontario, San Diego and Orange County.