Southwest Eliminates Meetings Program

Southwest Airlines has discontinued its 12-year-old program of offering discounted fares for meeting travel and now stands as the only major carrier to offer no meeting or group discounts. The airline will honor existing meeting contracts through the end of 2004.

Southwest senior director of marketing and sales Richard Sweet said the low-fare carrier made the move because the program, which offered a 10 percent discount on all fares for meetings of at least 25 attendees and included a free ticket for every 40 booked, did not generate enough revenue to justify its cost. "Essentially, we were discounting an already discounted fare," Sweet said. "We're not immune from reassessing ourselves." Unlike transient bookings, Sweet said, attendees could not book meeting fares over the Internet, and the technology upgrades necessary to allow such bookings would require more money and time than the carrier is inclined to commit. Also, he said, 65 percent of meeting fare users fly to Southwest's 10 most popular markets, sometimes forcing the carrier to turn away higher-revenue demand. Sweet said the carrier's meeting personnel will be reassigned to other marketing and reservations positions.