8 ex-employees of Southwest Airlines were charged with attempting a pretty impressive ticket scam that would have net them about a million dollars.  Basically, the employees took used tickets and re-sold them to passengers who were paying cash for tickets.  The workers would then just pocket the cash.  Not too shabby.  But still shabby enough that they got caught.  In case you were thinking of doing this yourself, the airline has changed its controls to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Southwest has some crazy delicious fares between Chicago-Midway and Islip Airport in central Long Island.  $78 ($97 including tax) gets you a round trip ticket between the two most days of the week for the forseeable future.  Hard to beat.  Thanks to D-lux for the heads up.

They may be the king of the discounters, but Southwest Airlines is also the king of profitability.  That may or may not make any sense.  Whatever.  The airline raised top fares $10 (and its cheapest fares by $2) each way to offset fuel prices.  This move increases the carrier’s top fare to $309 each way (break out that abacus to figure out what the old top fare was).  Other carriers let out a huge sigh of relief and also raised their fares.  I suspect Southwest will drop the top fares (which few people actually pay) once fuel prices drop a bit.  Keep in mind as you read this story elsewhere, that $309 fare is a rarity.  Most people will end up only paying $4 or $8 extra for a round trip ticket.

As part of its code share with ATA, Southwest Airlines is now offering Rapid Rewards tickets to Hawaii.  Flights will require double the number of Rapid Rewards coupons and are heavily capacity controlled.  I’ll give Southwest a ton of credit for coming out and saying that demand will outstrip supply for these rewards.  Gotta appreciate the honesty.

Southwest Airlines, which has not been happy with the restrictions placed on its Dallas Love base, is considering moving its headquarters to Phoenix.  Chairman and airline founder Herb Kelleher mentioned during a conference yesterday that several cities have approached the carrier about moving its headquarters, but the airline is only seriously considering the Phoenix proposal.  He also added that while the Dallas Love restrictions were annoying, it was not enough to make the carrier move.  However, you can imagine a financial proposal from Phoenix that would make it difficult to turn down.  Even so, Southwest is so linked to Texas a move seems unlikely.

United Airlines is fighting back against Southwest’s entry into Denver using the only real weapon they have: frequent flyer miles.  The deal they’re offering is kinda detailed, but in short, if you fly 2 round trips to or from Denver in 2006, you get 4000 bonus miles or a $100 certificate for a Hyatt stay.  4 round trips gets 8,000 miles.  The awards increase up to 16 round trips earning you a free international business class round trip (or 90,000 miles).

Plus, if you fly to a bunch of cities that Southwest flies to (listed in the link above), you get DOUBLE credits through July 3rd.  So, 8 round trip flights and, say, Phoenix would earn you a free business class ticket to Sydney, Australia, and only cost you about $900.  Just a thought.

Sometimes when moving you don’t have the local yellow pages yet and you may want to find Denver dentistsDenver. This is a time when an online phonebook or even white pages can help, though yellow pages are obviously better for things like Denver restaurants and other businesses. or some other service in the city of Denver. This is a time when an online phonebook or even white pages can help, though yellow pages are obviously better for things like Denver restaurants and other businesses.

The fight over Dallas Love Field is heating up and consumers will benefit (damn that sounds like the lead-in to a local TV news story.  I apologize, and I’m too lazy to change it).  Anyway, if you fly on Southwest from Dallas to Kansas City or St. Louis, you’ll get triple Rapid Rewards credits through the end of April.

Not to be outdone, American Airlines is offering up to 60,000 AAdvantage miles for flights between Dallas Love and St. Louis, Kansas City, San Antonio and Austin.  Hm, those sound like Southwest cities.  In any case, you have to fly a bunch of times to get those miles, (details here), but that’s a nice bonus for some short flghts. 

Passengers booked on Independence Air flights learned quickly that US law forces carriers to take these customers on their flights for $50 on a standby basis.  Never wanting to pass up an opportunity to wrestle every dollar from people, some legacy carriers have been offering to sell people confirmed seats for $100.

Southwest Airlines, on the other hand, has taken exactly the opposite tactic (as they so often do).  They are taking Independence Air passengers for free.  This is why customers love Southwest. 

American Airlines announced that it will launch flights from Dallas Love Field to Kansas City and St. Louis beginning in March.  Southwest previously announced the same routes. 

American then said that they will end service to six cities because of the move to Love Field (the airline has long held that if routes from Dallas Love were opened up, it would mean reduced service from DFW).  But the reality is this:  the routes they are dropping from DFW, the airline has admitted, were dropped in part because they weren’t making money.  So, if we were to take a step back, American is complaining that they had to drop unprofitable routes so they could compete (on possibly other unprofitable routes) at a different airport.  Fascinating.

(As noted yesterday, I hope you’re not hearing this first from me…)

A Southwest Airlines 737 skidded off the runway yesterday during a snowstorm at Chicago Midway, killing a boy who was in a car struck by the aircraft.  Please ignore some of the speculation I’ve already heard on the news this morning that Midway’s runways are too short.  This is nonsense.

(on a personal note, I flew out of Midway airport yesterday morning and it was sunny…hard to believe the snowy scene I saw on the news last night was the same day.)