Airline wars equal new Philadelphia Freedom for golfers

By Chris Baldwin,
Contributor

PHILADELPHIA - Skirmishes between gigantic businesses in billion-dollar industries rarely trickle down to the common man. Unless you own stock in one of the businesses in play or work for them and have your pension on the line, most corporate feuds are abstract headlines at best.

When they even make headlines at all.

Only when it comes to US Airways' turf war with Southwest Airlines all the usual rules are as relevant as Latin. This high-stakes corporate fight is being waged right in the heart of Philadelphia and it resembles nothing close to Brotherly Love. It's an all out public campaign and it has affected almost everyone who uses the second largest city on the East Coast as a travel base. Including, happily enough, the golf crazed among a metropolitan area of nearly 10 million souls. "Thank God for Southwest waking US Air's butt up," Chun Hung-Wen said, waiting in line to check his golf clubs. "It's changed everything."

What it is changing most is price and convenience. Philadelphia was the fourth most expensive airport to fly from in the entire country according to 2003 U.S. Department of Transportation figures with an average $394 roundtrip fare. The prices in Philadelphia stayed high while other airports' dropped because US Airways held a virtual monopoly on its major hub city with few other close-by options where customers could turn. (While the New York metro area has three major airports within a 40-mile radius, the closest competitor to Philly's airport is nearly two hours away.)

When Southwest Airlines began its Philadelphia service last May, that all started to change. Particularly uplifting for cheesesteak-reared duffers was the discount airlines selection of golf hot spots Las Vegas, Phoenix and Orlando for daily nonstop flights. Suddenly, you can grab your clubs and go, almost last minute.

Even before Southwest actually started flying from Philadelphia, US Airways drastically slashed its prices to these golf locations and added many more direct flights. US Airways officials saw it as a necessary preemptive strike to protect their market share. Area golfers just saw the path to the fairways of their daydreams open wide.

"Before if I decided to take a trip like this, it would have cost me almost a thousand dollars," Hung-Wen said of an extended Las Vegas golf weekend planned only the weekend before. "Now I can get it for around $200. Before you were almost better off sucking it up and making the long drive to BWI (Baltimore's airport) or Newark (New Jersey). And frankly, after a few of those drives you'd figure it just wasn't worth it."

Southwest's influence is felt most by those passengers not actually flying Southwest. For while the reputed discount airline's roundtrip fare to Las Vegas is still $598 for anything less than two weeks notice, other airlines interested in keeping their customers have bargain cut their prices on Southwest's routes.

Nonstop, roundtrip fares to Las Vegas with a mere five days notice could be found for $183 on both U.S. Air and America West this week. And these price ranges are now largely typical.

"The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau has done a good job of trying to keep the cost of flights to Vegas down from all over the country," said one Las Vegas golf vacation packager.

Now, with the help of a fierce airline battle, those quick getaway Las Vegas fares are even reaching stubborn Philadelphia.

The question is: How long will the good flying times last? Having already been through one bankruptcy, US Airways is cutting into the profits on its most lucrative market by trying to one up Southwest. US Air's corporate mantra is that it will be do anything necessary to maintain its traditional, strong hold over Philadelphia air travel.

Southwest is starting out small as it usually does in a new market though. It only offers 28 flights to 13 cities from Philadelphia, where as US Airways boasts almost 400 daily flights to over a 100 cities.

"This is not a Viking killer ship coming in," Southwest CEO Herb Kelleher told the Philadelphia Inquirer during a promotional visit. Will US Airways soon conclude that Southwest's threat is too small to keep all its fares to these golf markets so low? Hung-Wen for one is not waiting to find out. Not with tracks like the Royal Links Golf Club and Paiute Wolf calling his name from the desert.

"I'm making this trip while I can," Hung-Wen said. "Life's short and I need to golf."

Philadelphia freedom? For now.

January 12, 2004

Chris Baldwin keeps one eye on the PGA Tour and another watching golf vacation hotspots and letting travelers in on the best place to vacation.