Southwest Airlines completed its $1.4 billion purchase of AirTran earlier this month. AirTran currently runs two daily flights with Utah-based SkyWest Airlines out of Akron-Canton Airport to Milwaukee. Southwest Airlines spokesman Chris Mainz says only this shared service is under scrutiny because of union agreements.
Chris Mainz:That's something we're going to have to eventually wind down. Southwest has a contract with our pilots that we don't participate in domestic code share which essentially that partnership between SkyWest and AirTran is a domestic code share.
But Mainz says passengers with tickets for these flights or hoping to make reservations in the very near future will be fine. Mainz says Southwest is still in discussions as to what will happen with these or any future additional flights.
Chris Mainz: These are all decisions yet to be made and in the short term nothing will change.
The news of the possible cuts came at Southwest Airlines' annual meeting at its Dallas headquarters. AirTran accounts for nearly half of Akron-Canton airport's passenger traffic. The two airlines' merger is expected to take 18 months.