151 southwest which flies more domestic passengers than any other us airline is going international the airline is picking up airtrans flights to mexico and the caribbean after buying its rival last year its getting a new reservations system to handle overseas bookings and is seeking to build an international terminal at houstons hobby airport where it says it could ultimately add 25 flights abroad a day building an international presence is a significant shift for southwest which flew to success by focusing on reliable lowfare service within the us and its another sign that the onetime niche carrier is increasingly competing on the same turf as the big network airlines the socalled legacy carriers such as united delta and american flying into more congested markets now trying to go overseas it seems like theyre becoming a legacy carrier says basili alukos an airline analyst at morningstar but he adds if southwest can replicate its domestic network and success internationally i think theres a lot of opportunity there having a footprint beyond the us was a key reason southwest decided to buy airtran says bob jordan southwests executive vice president and chief commercial officer we have always wanted to get to a point where we added international capabilities said jordan adding that airtrans staff aircraft and perch at atlantas hartsfieldjackson international the worlds busiest airport also figured into the decision to merge combined with airtran southwest has roughly 25 of the us market in terms of passenger traffic jordan says while there is still room to grow domestically he says you do get to a point where the next best set of destinations becomes international for now southwests international flights are still operated by airtran which flies more than 20 a day and plans to add more service between san antonio and mexico city will start thursday while flights from orange county to mexico city and cabo san lucas mexico will launch on june 3 eventually however those flights will be under southwests banner and jordan says passengers heading to foreign destinations will have access to low ticket prices that southwest is known for domestically weve looked at the fares and in every single case using our typical southwest structure southwest will be able to lower fares on the routes were considering he says southwest recently announced it was deferring delivery of 30 boeing 737800 jets to cut costs roughly 1 billion over two years and strengthen its cash flow amid uncertain economic times and volatile fuel prices but it says the move wont affect its plans to fly internationally jordan says low prices a strong record for ontime flights and a good staff have fueled southwests popularity and those hallmarks will stay in place as it stretches abroad none of that changes with international service he says our service our frequencies our low fares all of that comes with it and thats what makes us different from the large network carriers not whether we do or dont