Yesterday, Southwest announced a pretty awesome offer to Atlanta residents. Fly three roundtrips and get a Companion Pass for the rest of 2015. Registration is required. Visit southwest.com/atlanta for details. That’s not a small deal. For those of you that never leave our airport, Atlanta people tend to be one of two types – ITP or OTP, that’s inside the perimeter or outside the perimeter, the soul-sucking stretch of highway that surrounds our city also known as I-285. 🙂 For the record, I’m an ITP guy, but I do occasionally venture out. One thing I noticed on my drive about town today is that Southwest has purchased most of the available billboard advertising available. OK, “most” may be an exaggeration, but believe me when I say that they have dropped some marketing money into Atlanta of late.

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All of this has left me to wonder what will Delta do? It’s no secret that this is Delta’s hometown and largest hub. Delta’s schedule frequency is far better than Southwest’s, but I can’t help but think that Southwest’s latest marketing efforts are going to have some kind of an impact. While I suspect that Delta sees its core local customers as not likely to defect to Southwest, I have to wonder if all the changes at SkyMiles will lead some to flirt with Southwest? Delta has the local corporate market locked up I’m sure, but what about everyone else?

I’m going to speculate that Delta sits tight for now to see if they notice any market share shift locally? If they do, look for some kind of promotion in our future here in Atlanta. Do you think Delta will respond in some way to Southwest’s latest Atlanta campaign? What do you think they’ll do?

-MJ, February 14, 2015