Nuts About Southwest

So…if we announced all of this yesterday, you’d think it was an April Fool’s joke.  BUT IT’S NOT!  We’ve just unveiled lots of service adjustments in the Summer/Fall 2012 schedules.

Headline News:  Southwest is adding THREE new cities!  Effective August 12, Southwest will begin daily service at Akron-Canton (CAK) and Dayton, Ohio (DAY).   At Akron-Canton, we’ll begin with two daily roundtrips to Chicago Midway and a daily roundtrip to Denver alongside AirTran’s 10 daily flights to five markets.  At Dayton, we’ll begin with one daily roundtrip to Denver alongside FL’s eight daily flights to four markets.  Then, on September 30, we’ll begin service to Iowa’s Capital—Des Moines (DSM)—with two roundtrips to Chicago Midway, effectively converting that airport to the Southwest brand.  The new Southwest service will offer Customers in Ohio and Iowa fantastic access to the rest of the Southwest network.   

We also unveiled a number of other schedule changes.  On June 3, we’ll shift the one remaining AirTran flight between Milwaukee and Denver to Southwest, giving us three daily Milwaukee-Denver roundtrips!  We’ll also add two AirTran roundtrips daily in the Atlanta-Houston and Atlanta-Chicago Midway markets, and one AirTran roundtrip between Atlanta and Baltimore/Washington, Denver, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.  Southwest also will add one new seasonal nonstop flight between St. Louis and Panama City Beach, FL (where “Everyone Can Party!”) and between Austin and Portland, Ore., as well as an additional nonstop between St. Louis and Boston and between Dallas and Austin.

Starting August 12, in addition to our new service to Akron-Canton and Dayton, we’ll be shifting one roundtrip daily from Southwest to AirTran between Atlanta and Los Angeles, Chicago Midway, and Phoenix, as well as adding AirTran frequency between Atlanta and Boston, Baltimore/Washington, and Houston Hobby.  We’ll also shift one roundtrip from AirTran to Southwest between Milwaukee and both Las Vegas and Phoenix.  We’re also implementing similar service swaps in numerous markets effective September 30, in addition to our new service at Des Moines. 

These schedule changes mark the first time that we’ve shifted existing, out-for-sale service between the Southwest and AirTran networks, which will go a long way toward aligning both networks to provide even better Customer access (note:  if you have reservations on service that’s affected, we’ll contact you very soon!).  Of course, we’re also incredibly hard at work to make the ultimate in network alignment possible— allowing Customers to fly across the Southwest and AirTran networks!  We’re making progress, but it’s a very large job, since neither Southwest nor AirTran’s reservation system had the capability to connect the networks prior to the acquisition.  Hopefully we’ll have the capability ready to roll out to our Customers in 2013.  Until then, again—welcome to Southwest, Akron-Canton, Dayton, and Des Moines.  Have a great day, everyone!