Many cities lose out in Southwest-AirTran merger

— -- Sarasota's city leaders rejoiced when the Baltimore Orioles team chose the southwest Florida community in 2010 as its spring-training home. They calculated they'd draw enough baseball fans to justify spending $31 million to renovate their stadium.

Last year, they glimpsed a payoff. A record 115,000 fans showed up to watch 16 spring games in the first year the Orioles played in the rebuilt stadium. The visitors, the city figures, spent about $156 apiece each day in the area.

But joy turned to worry in January, when city leaders learned that low-cost AirTran Airways was ending non-stop flights to the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport.

"To bring these people from out of town to start the economic wheel turning several times, it's got to be as convenient as possible for them to get here," says Steve Queior, president of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce.

Sarasota's loss of non-stop service from such places as Baltimore and Milwaukee is just one of the side effects of AirTran's merger with bigger low-cost carrier Southwest. Fourteen other cities have also learned that they'd be losing AirTran and not picking up Southwest service. Some of them depended on AirTran for a quarter or more of their air traffic in and out of their cities.

As U.S. airlines continue to consolidate, travelers in many small and midsize cities are losing some connections to the nation's air network. The departure of low-cost carriers is a particular blow because many rely on them to keep fares in check. Since AirTran ceased service to Quad City International Airport in Moline, Ill., on Jan. 6, for instance, the airport figures that overall fares have risen 31%.

The Southwest-AirTran merger leaves cities — including Knoxvillle, Tenn.; Lexington, Ky.; and Harrisburg, Pa. — scrambling to lure other airlines to their airports at a time when there are fewer carriers out there.

"It's a cold hard fact that many communities around the country are losing their air service, not just from these mergers but from the cuts in capacity from American, United, Continental, Delta," says William Swelbar, a research engineer at MIT's International Center for Air Transportation.

Southwest has always been considered a consumer-friendly alternative to so-called legacy airlines such as United-Continental and American. Unlike those airlines, Southwest doesn't charge fees for changing flights or for checking two bags.

When its alliance with AirTran is complete, Southwest will fly to more than 100 cities, making it the nation's first super-size, low-cost airline. But is it truly low-cost?

"Southwest has already changed dramatically from its early days as a scrappy challenger," says Brett Snyder, founder of the travel assistance website The Cranky Flier. "As its costs have risen — it has incredibly high labor costs compared to other airlines — it has been forced to get more revenue out of its operation, and fares have risen a lot."

Not that there weren't winners in Southwest's unveiling of its new route map. Of the 69 cities AirTran served when Southwest acquired it in May 2011, 53 will eventually switch to full Southwest service. Among some of the smaller communities that feared losing service but avoided the chopping block: Akron-Canton, Ohio; Flint, Mich; and Wichita.. Later this year, Southwest will add service from Austin and Orange County, Calif., to some destinations in Mexico.