NEW YORK — Southwest Airlines has agreed to buy AirTran in a $1.42 billion deal that will combine two of the nation’s biggest discount carriers.
The acquisition moves Southwest into 37 new cities. The largest of those is Atlanta, where Delta Air Lines is based. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International airport is the nation’s busiest, and a primary hub for business travelers, a group that Southwest has increasingly been targeting because they tend to pay higher fares.
The acquisition also gives Southwest a bigger slice of the market in cities like Boston and New York, major East Coast cities, where it has been expanding. Southwest also gains routes to Mexico and the Caribbean.