Given this background, I have flown SWA exactly two times in 16 years! This was way back in 1996 when ticket purchase was via a travel agent and SWA being cheap was blind faith with no interrogation. South West airlines being the cheapest is the biggest myth that refuses to die. Couple of years ago I conducted an experiment for laughs and giggles. I chalked different routes based on Southwest airlines’ available destinations. For example, small Southwest Market to large Southwest market (say, Norfolk-Houston), large southwest market to large southwest market (Say Dallas to Phoenix), etc. To these routes I added different travel dates. Weekend travel, mid-week travel. My third dimension of data points was to add 21 day advance purchase, and 7 day advance purchase. The three dimensions yielded about 25-30 different routes. To these I added 5 completely randomly selected routes. In the end, an example of a route in this mixing bowl would be Nashville to Las Vegas on a weekend with 7 day advance purchase. I plugged in the destinations and dates on Expedia and Southwest airlines side by side. The result would shock Southwest airlines lovers. Expedia won 90% of the travels. Some by huge margins even in Southwest’s stated sphere of influence! In many routes it did not even make the 5 best fares.