It
always seems weird to talk about our schedule for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New
Years, and the end of the year when the calendar hasn’t even hit Memorial
Day. But that’s life for an airline scheduler—well, for everyone,
really. After all—you have to plan ahead to “make the Season bright!”
WE’RE
OPEN! Bookings are now being accepted through January 6, 2012. I
know how eager you guys are to get your reservations for this Holiday
Season. You can now book that holiday trip on southwest.com, or through our CS&S Centers by calling 1-800-I-FLY-SWA, whether you’re planning Thanksgiving with the family, Christmas in the Rockies,
or NYE in the NYC!
And talk about the whole “Tale Of Two Cities” thing—this schedule really includes the best of times and the worst of times. It’s got the deep traffic valleys of early November and the ‘tween-Holiday weeks, and it’s also got the high traffic peaks of the Holidays, including the “Mount Everest” of them all, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So we’re varying the schedule more than ever, thanks to enhancements to our Schedule Optimizer as well as the hard work of our Current Schedules Team. We’ve got three separate flavors of schedules in this release—one, our standard November base schedule, which is written for the traffic “valleys.” Two, the peaks, which are individually optimized to the individual traffic characteristics of the highest-of-the-high traffic days. And three, those days in the middle, where we are busier than normal with more families and infrequent travelers, so we’re tweaking the schedule on those days to improve on-time performance.
As for the specifics: for *most* of the November-January schedule, Southwest is planning for a network of 3,182 flights per standard weekday (meaning, those days in the “valley”). Compared to the September/October schedule, we’re eliminating two nonstop markets—Nashville to Providence and Hartford—as well as two that will be taking a seasonal “vacation,” Nashville-Seattle and Las Vegas-Norfolk. A fifth market, Birmingham-Phoenix, is eliminated on non-Peak days in this period. There are many other markets with slight increases (7 roundtrip markets) and decreases (90 roundtrip markets). These are all pretty standard seasonal capacity changes. Please see the attached .PDF for a market-by-market description of frequency changes. On the “peak” days, we’re planning between 3,398 and 3,471 daily departures. And where is AirTran’s schedule? Not here…not yet. For now, the two networks are scheduled separately. After all—it takes 9 months to have a baby, and it’s been less than a month since our “wedding!”
That's too bad about the BNA to BDL/PVD cut. I currently live in Huntsville, AL, and I grew up in Connecticut. I always fly out of Nashville when visiting family just because Southwest's direct flights, not to mention the great price. Oh well.
Bill-
Please stop changing our N/S flights to seasonal and then cutting in favor of connections in Denver and Baltimore. What reason is there for our city to be the only one in the network to lose permanently two nonstop routes in this schedule(particularly ones that have been around for a very long time)?
First off...Why should a customer choose SW from Nashville to Providence(Boston), or Hartford now that the non-stop advantage is gone? What makes you better than connecting on American, US Airways, or Delta? Sell me on it.
Secondly...What has changed in Nashville over the last 11 and 16 years respectively to make the Hartford and Providence service go away after all that time? Population here has increased, headquarters and businesses have increased, and tourism has increased. We also have more southbound service for which to connect to than we've ever had. So what gives? Like the poster above, I really don't understand how Greeneville/Spartanburg can work but places like Hartford, Providence, and Boston that are much larger and established as business routes can't.
Really wish that you would stop the trend of turning BNA markets to seasonal and/or cutting them. Yes, you have added new flights to the panhandle, STL, and SC(which is appreciated!), but the demise at the same time of ISP, MHT, PVD, BDL, OAK, and ONT is saddening. You can't dispute that Nashville has grown rather than shrunk over the years so why longstanding routes would go away doesn't make sense to me. Like your airline alot and hope that the Airtran merger reverses this trend.
This was the ultimate opening of a flight schedule. I stayed up all night on Monday Night going back-and-forth between the Web Site and the Phone Centers. All of my old style Standard Award Travel is now confirmed and booked, even Thanksgiving where I will be flying roundtrip between Sacramento and Newark for just Ten Dollars!! Hey, that is a bargain that can't be passed up and I became a winner by pulling that all-nighter. As the Black Eyed Peas would say, "I've got a feeling, that tonight's going to be a good night." It is true, as I know through communication through family and staying on top of the booking process for those old Standard Awards, I will relax and have a great night's sleep here on May 24th, whereas I didn't on May 23rd. Southwest is awesome and the best air carrier this Country has. I do not know what the United States of America would be like without Southwest giving so many Americans and so many Californians like me the Freedom to Fly and the Freedom to Go, See and Do Things that on the competition would have never been possible. My becoming a winner in the battle for award travel over the 2011 Thanksgiving Holiday period did not come easy as I had a hard time with a Southwest Rapid Rewards business partner I will not mention here, however, Andre and Varity (pardon my spelling) in the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Office at Headquarters in Dallas went the extra mile for me when I was going through some stressful times wondering what had ever happened to the points I had transfered betwen that unnamed Rapid Rewards Business Partner and my own Rapid Rewards Account. Everyday I had kept calling the toll-free number that told me through an automated system what my point total was, and finally on May 19th, the points I had been anticipating finally arrived. This date was just five days before the schedule was going to open. That was a close call!! I will be sure not to cut it that close again. Holy Koudelka!! We'll along came the May 24th date I had happily been waiting for and through booking award travel on my conversion award, I truly came out a winner. Thank you Southwest and Thank you Andre and Varity in Rapid Rewards, Brian, Erin, and Laurel in Communications, and let us of course not ever forget Bill and Dan in Network Planning. Most important of all, I want to thank my sister Laurie and my Brother-in-Law Todd for being flexible and understanding with me to travel on the Monday before Thanksgiving from Sacramento to Newark through Phoenix and the Tuesday after Thanksgiving from Newark to Sacramento through Denver. I will be sure to get my brief Rocky Mountain High on this Ten Dollar Trip for all of those of you who helped me make my Thanksgiving 2011 Travel a very Thankful Booking Process this go-around.
Sincerely,
Mike Barnbaum, Rapid Rewards Member in Sacramento, California
PS: If I were to E-mail a photo of myself, would you then and only then be able to "verify" who I am rather than me and the blog world out there always seeing "not verified?" Please advise, and I will follow through to your direction.
Comments
Hi there!
Is there anyway to be notified when SWA announces their new schedules/inventory, rather than just checking back every few days?!
Keep up the great work!
Amelia
That's too bad about the BNA to BDL/PVD cut. I currently live in Huntsville, AL, and I grew up in Connecticut. I always fly out of Nashville when visiting family just because Southwest's direct flights, not to mention the great price. Oh well.
Bill-
Please stop changing our N/S flights to seasonal and then cutting in favor of connections in Denver and Baltimore. What reason is there for our city to be the only one in the network to lose permanently two nonstop routes in this schedule(particularly ones that have been around for a very long time)?
Why would you cut flights to MHT? The Primary is this year. NH will be one of the busiest places this fall and winter? Doesn't make sense to me!!!!
First off...Why should a customer choose SW from Nashville to Providence(Boston), or Hartford now that the non-stop advantage is gone? What makes you better than connecting on American, US Airways, or Delta? Sell me on it.
Secondly...What has changed in Nashville over the last 11 and 16 years respectively to make the Hartford and Providence service go away after all that time? Population here has increased, headquarters and businesses have increased, and tourism has increased. We also have more southbound service for which to connect to than we've ever had. So what gives? Like the poster above, I really don't understand how Greeneville/Spartanburg can work but places like Hartford, Providence, and Boston that are much larger and established as business routes can't.
Really wish that you would stop the trend of turning BNA markets to seasonal and/or cutting them. Yes, you have added new flights to the panhandle, STL, and SC(which is appreciated!), but the demise at the same time of ISP, MHT, PVD, BDL, OAK, and ONT is saddening. You can't dispute that Nashville has grown rather than shrunk over the years so why longstanding routes would go away doesn't make sense to me. Like your airline alot and hope that the Airtran merger reverses this trend.
MORE Dulles Service please how about Dulles Atlanta ! dulles airport needs more SWA service!
This was the ultimate opening of a flight schedule. I stayed up all night on Monday Night going back-and-forth between the Web Site and the Phone Centers. All of my old style Standard Award Travel is now confirmed and booked, even Thanksgiving where I will be flying roundtrip between Sacramento and Newark for just Ten Dollars!! Hey, that is a bargain that can't be passed up and I became a winner by pulling that all-nighter. As the Black Eyed Peas would say, "I've got a feeling, that tonight's going to be a good night." It is true, as I know through communication through family and staying on top of the booking process for those old Standard Awards, I will relax and have a great night's sleep here on May 24th, whereas I didn't on May 23rd. Southwest is awesome and the best air carrier this Country has. I do not know what the United States of America would be like without Southwest giving so many Americans and so many Californians like me the Freedom to Fly and the Freedom to Go, See and Do Things that on the competition would have never been possible. My becoming a winner in the battle for award travel over the 2011 Thanksgiving Holiday period did not come easy as I had a hard time with a Southwest Rapid Rewards business partner I will not mention here, however, Andre and Varity (pardon my spelling) in the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Office at Headquarters in Dallas went the extra mile for me when I was going through some stressful times wondering what had ever happened to the points I had transfered betwen that unnamed Rapid Rewards Business Partner and my own Rapid Rewards Account. Everyday I had kept calling the toll-free number that told me through an automated system what my point total was, and finally on May 19th, the points I had been anticipating finally arrived. This date was just five days before the schedule was going to open. That was a close call!! I will be sure not to cut it that close again. Holy Koudelka!! We'll along came the May 24th date I had happily been waiting for and through booking award travel on my conversion award, I truly came out a winner. Thank you Southwest and Thank you Andre and Varity in Rapid Rewards, Brian, Erin, and Laurel in Communications, and let us of course not ever forget Bill and Dan in Network Planning. Most important of all, I want to thank my sister Laurie and my Brother-in-Law Todd for being flexible and understanding with me to travel on the Monday before Thanksgiving from Sacramento to Newark through Phoenix and the Tuesday after Thanksgiving from Newark to Sacramento through Denver. I will be sure to get my brief Rocky Mountain High on this Ten Dollar Trip for all of those of you who helped me make my Thanksgiving 2011 Travel a very Thankful Booking Process this go-around.
Sincerely,
Mike Barnbaum, Rapid Rewards Member in Sacramento, California
PS: If I were to E-mail a photo of myself, would you then and only then be able to "verify" who I am rather than me and the blog world out there always seeing "not verified?" Please advise, and I will follow through to your direction.
Bummer about PVD-BNA. Was hopeful it'd come back in Summer '12 like it did this year...but apparently not, I guess.