"Airfares are going nowhere but up for the rest of the year, industry analysts are predicting in the wake of another successful fare increase by U.S. airlines to offset high fuel costs."

This is the Wednesday morning catch-all...

APRIL PASSENGERS NUMBERS

Our April passenger numbers are in and the news is good: they’re up 6.4 percent compared to the same month last year. For the first four months of the year passenger numbers are up 9.1%. This is good news. Keep in mind that last year we were down 8.1%. Why such an improvement? Several factors are at work…

In response to an earlier post, about Southwest Airlines providing service in Branson, Keven writes:

We've had several inquiries about the announcement last Friday that Southwest Airlines will continue the AirTran service to the Branson airport. For those of you haven't kept up, here's some brief background...

One of the most frequent questions we get from the public is about Southwest Airlines, as in, "When will Southwest come to Springfield?" Our answer, in summary, "Not for a long time, our market is too small."

Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest Airlines, put out an extraordinarily candid letter to employees this week. In it he succinctly summarizes the state of the airline industry, and of Southwest in particular. You can read the letter, in its entirety, here. Here are some key parts to look for...

Since the merger of AirTran and Southwest Airlines, earlier this year, the media has finally started to figure out that Southwest is not a discount airline.

We've received several questions  about the day's big business news: Southwest Airlines (SWA) is buying AirTran for $1.4 billion. "Mizzou" posted this:

Aaron has a question about our surging passenger numbers:

I'm blogging from Texas this evening because I'm attending a national air service conference sponsored by the American Association of Airport Executives. This is one of the conferences where you get a chance to talk to others in the airport/airline industries and find out what's going on across the country.