About a month ago, Southwest Airlines announced its intention to start service in Milwaukee — and, today, it opened up ticket sales to over 50 destinations via six non-stop routes:

• Baltimore [3 daily]
• Kansas City [3 daily]
• Las Vegas [2 daily]
• Orlando [2 daily]
• Phoenix [1 daily]
• Tampa [1 daily]

Ticket sale start today for departures beginning November 1^st as Southwest extends its schedule through the 8th of January.

DEALS: These six new non-stop destination cities are going to enjoy introductory pricing of $35 one-way for departures in the first few weeks of November, purchased next 4 days ($49-$99 range after), while almost half the new Southwest destinations (21 of them) are priced at $100 one-way or less.

COMPETITION: Right now, the dominant carriers in Milwaukee are Midwest Airlines with 90 daily departures, and AirTran with 34 daily departures – and it appears that both these airlines are going to have to gear up for an airfare war – especially on some of the key non-stop routes.

For example, Midwest has six daily non-stops to Kansas City with a cheapest price of $104 one-way and two daily non-stops to Las Vegas at $109 one-way, and to Phoenix for $119 one-way. These prices are likely to come down sharply, in short order.

AIRFARE WAR: AirTran has already begun a preemptive strike – yesterday, it fired out $49 one-way airfares from Milwaukee to Baltimore and $65 one-way fares to Orlando – both of those cities are served with three daily non-stops.

A quick check of the more expensive business-oriented refundable airfares from Southwest on these new routes shows that AirTran is not competitive on walkup refundable pricing.

FEES: Adding more complexity to this rock bottom pricing is the fact that while Southwest does not charge a fee to check a 1st or 2nd bag, both AirTran and Midwest charge $15 each way for a 1^st checked bag and $25/$20 respectively for a 2^nd checked bag – plus, they do not compete favorably on several other fees, including phone reservations.

I will be closely watching the Milwaukee-Baltimore route – as this route is likely to have excess capacity – and it should be interesting to see who blinks first – Southwest or AirTran.