I was thinking the other day about why the Knoxville area has such a hard time recruiting jobs and industry. It occurred to me that our, shall we say, less than robust airline service might be one problem.

So I did some fare comparisons. These were done this past Monday (7/19) for the lowest price roundtrip fares departing Jul. 26 and returning Jul. 30. Expedia was used for every search except I also checked Allegient for Knoxville and Southwest for Nashville. All fares are exclusive of taxes and fees.

Click image for bigger.

It appears there is a definite "Southwest effect" in Nashville (and an "Allegient effect" in Knoxville if you're going to Orlando), but Southwest wasn't always the cheapest.

Knoxville is overall more expensive and doesn't have as many direct flights. And taking connecting flights out of Knoxville to save money means an ever increasing risk of not getting to your destination on time these days. But in most cases it doesn't seem worth the trouble of driving to Nashville.