[Porsche-O-Phile]

That is true to some extent - I know a few guys I used to fly with who are now with various fractionals or executives. There's definitely a market there - high end business travelers that don't want to deal with the hassle of someone else's schedule, being poked and prodded or paraded around a terminal lobby in their underwear by minimum-wage TSA schlubs, etc. But not everyone can afford this either.

A big key to SWA's success has been fuel hedging. But this will only go so far. Eventually high fuel costs will affect them too - but they've bought themselves a lot of time relative to their competition.

The smarter airlines are flying smaller, more efficient aircraft where they can (CRJs, etc.) with occasional larger equipment on very specific routes where there's demand for it.

United's model in general is one of the oldest and stodgiest in the industry. They still play games with 4 and 5-tier fare structures and try to nickel dime their passengers for every amenity once on board. This model is DEAD. For one, I can't stand flying on United for this reason. SWA (and JetBlue) with their "one class" model is much more palatable to the traveling public-at-large. Heck, even for business, JetBlue is pretty good (SWA is an annoyance on business trips though - seat pitch is too small and it feels like a city bus in many respects).

I wish them well, but they fundamentally need to change RADICALLY in order to survive - not just coming up with a new paint scheme or logo.