Southwest Airlines Begins Service to Austin from Philadelphia This Week: A Great New Route for a Relatively New Philly Carrier

"In 2004 SouthwestAirlines announce[d] its 31st consecutive year of profitability and begsouthwest.com. The on line feature provid[ed] additional convenience to Customers by allowing them to proceed to their departure gate without stopping at the ticket counter, Skycap, or self-service kiosk. On May 9, SouthwestAirlines launche[d] service to Philadelphia, its 60th airport. With the addition of its Philadelphia service, Southwest then operated 2,800 daily flights to 60 airports in 59 cities across the United States."

People in Philadelphia at the time were hoping the addition of the city's first discount airline would result in savings for air travelers across the board. Many people had gotten in the habit of traveling to Baltimore's BWI airport to save money on trips. This was especially the case for small business owners who were paying for trips out of their own pockets not so much a problem for corporate business travelers whose tickets were paid for by the travel offices in their bloated bureaucracies. So many talented people struck out on their own after September 11th or in our field, (high finance) found themselves unceremoniously down sized. Luckily most of the men and women I knew were able to find work as consultants or supermodels and so forth. They were great salesmen in any case and so much of being an international hottie is attitude. You could hop a train to New York for a photoshoot just as easily as the shuttle and it was so much more relaxing and dollar productive than trading stocks and bonds.