Southwest Airlines launched a 3-day "Winter Sale" today forcing other airlines to follow suit on routes where they compete.

The fares are available through Thursday.

Here are some examples of roundtrip fares tax included:

Seattle to:

Sacramento: $169
Spokane: $99
Boise: $119
Chicago: $236.50
Oakland: $145

The fares are available for flights from Dec. 2 to Feb. 11. They must be purchased 21 days before travel.

“This is basically to see if they can fill up some of those soft areas and spur some interest in seats from people that probably already thought they couldn’t travel for the holiday period or into early next year,” said Rick Seaney, chief executive of FareCompare.com, an airline fare research firm.

The swine have come home to roost. Or the chickens, turkeys, cows and lambs.

Three years after she began working on the idea and a year after the organized effort began, Cheryl Ouellette – otherwise known as the Pig Lady – has succeeded in securing a USDA-approved mobile slaughterhouse for use by South Sound farmers, butchers and chefs.

I wrote about her efforts, and those of other local parties, earlier this year. Last night, the Pierce Conservation District approved the expenditure of up to $250,000 for the design and construction of a “mobile meat processing unit.”

“I’m very excited,” Ouellette told me this afternoon. “Okay, now the hard work begins.”

The plan is that the conservation district will lease the unit to the Puget Sound Meat Producers Cooperative, which will operate it in Pierce, King, Kitsap, Mason, Thurston and Lewis Counties. Ouellette, who is president of the cooperative, said she’ll be out recruiting new members and selling shares in the organization.

There’s a $100 fee to join, and a share goes for $500. Associate memberships are $50. Ouellette said she expects to be contacting South Sound producers and high-volume consumers.

The design of the unit has been approved, and the conservation district will be negotiating a contract with the manufacturer, whose name has not been released.

Ouelette said she hopes to have the unit ready for an unveiling at the Puyallup Spring Fair, scheduled for April 16-19.

If airport officials' plans unfold as they hope, Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters and Federal Aviation Administrator Robert Sturgell will dedicate three new runways at three airports including Sea-Tac on Nov. 20.

The three runways at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. at O'Hare Airport in Chicago and at Sea-Tac have been in the planning and construction phase for years, but they've all reached completion on the same day.

At Sea-Tac, the new third runway is a $1.1 billion project for which planning began 15 years ago. The 8,500-foot-long, 150-foot-wide runway will supplement the airport's two other north-south strips.

The new runway was built on a huge mountain of fill west of the existing runways. The new runway will allow near-simultaneous landings during bad weather.

The two existing runways are too close to allow simultaneous landings when visibility drops.

The dedications will start in Virginia outside the nation's capital where the two federal dignitaries will open Dulles Airport's fourth runway, a 9,400-foot strip that parallels two existing north-south runways.

The flying functionaries will then visit Chicago and dedicate a 7,500-foot north runway at O'Hare Airport.

That runway is part of an overhaul at O'Hare designed to improve the capacity of the world's second-largest airport.

Finally, the officials will move to Seattle to dedicate the third runway. That ceremony is tentatively set for 3 p.m.

Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper said the ceremony will take place in the airport's arrival hall. The first official commercial airport user will likely be a commercial flight diverted from the usual line of planes waiting to take off on the airport's easternmost runway. That plane will be instructed to take off from the new runway instead.

Dateline: WASILLA, Alaska. (You know the home of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.)

What: Warehouse retailer Costco has pulled its plans to build a store in Wasilla, The Associated Press reports.

Surprise: The unexpected move comes after reports that the Issaquah-based chain had officially filed an application to begin construction in the city. City planner Jim Holycross said Monday that Costco withdrew its application without warning.
“It’s a shock to me and probably to all of the people that want Costco,” he said.

No word from Costco: Representatives of the retail giant could not immediately be reached for comment.
Holycross said Costco likely spent as much as $50,000 to put together its application.

He said he expects reasons for the drop in plans to be submitted in writing sometime this week.

Others also pull out: The site where Costco had planned to build is part of the Creekside Town Square development.
Another developer that has decided against building there is Coming Attractions Theatres, a Pacific Northwest company.
CEO John Schweiger said it would have cost millions in site work to get a building pad and parking lot.
“It became financially impossible,” he said.

Horizon Lines, a major tenant at the Port of Tacoma, has announced a nationwide reorganization aimed at trimming its non-union workforce by 10 percent.

That force reduction will save the Charlotte, N.C.-based Horizon an estimated $7 million to $10 million annually.

An Horizon spokesman said its too early to tell how many in the company's Puget Sound area labor force will accept the company's voluntary severance program. The company employs about 700 non-union workers nationwide. If the voluntary program doesn't yield the 70-job reduction the company has targeted, Horizon expects to lay off employees.

None of the union workers on its sailing vessels will be affected in the job reductions.

Horizon, formerly the domestic shipping arm of SeaLand Services, offers twice weekly sailings from Tacoma to Alaska. There it serves the ports of Anchorage, Kodiak and Dutch Harbor directly and other ports via connecting services.

The company also offers weekly containership service from Tacoma to Guam via Oakland, Calif.

In its third quarter financial results news conference, the company said its Alaska business remains fairly healthy but other service has been more deeply affected by the nation's ongoing financial crisis.

Horizon offers so-called "Jones Act" shipping service beween American ports. The Jones Act requires such waterborne commerce to be conducted by American ships crewed by American crews.

The company provides service between the mainland U.S. and Alaska, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Micronesia and Guam.

"We continue to face a very difficult macro-economic environment that is having a significant adverse impact on the markets we serve," said Chuck Raymond, Horizon's chief executive officer. "We expect those challenges to continue through at least 2009 and are taking the appropriate, necessary steps to adjust our business without impacting our ability to continue providing excellent service to all our customers and execute our business strategy."