Ah, Spring travel. Doesn’t matter if you’re a Spring Breaker, going to visit family, or travelling for business—it just always feels good to start getting out of winter chill and back into the “spring” of things, which happens every single year starting in March. And
Southwest Airlines March/April 2016 schedule—released today—is written with that in mind!
Our schedule extension today covers the date range March 9 through April 11, 2016, and adds exactly 250 weekday departures t the schedule over January of 2016. On a year-over-year comparison at 3,866 departures per day, the March-April schedule has nearly 150 more weekday departures than we had during the same period in 2015 and trust me, nothing makes a scheduler smile more than being able to grow the network. In keeping with the spike in leisure travel during this time frame, many of our frequency increases are to/from warm weather or ski destinations. We also include the normal structural changes we do in every new schedule, like updated flying times based on seasonal weather and wind changes. But there are a few other notable changes to discuss. Let’s discuss!
Re-engineering Washington/Dulles
We’re going to re-engineer our Washington/Dulles service pattern just a bit by adding two first-ever Dulles-Atlanta roundtrips, which will replace our Dulles-Chicago/Midway nonstops. This is very reflective of the way our Dulles traffic pattern has evolved, with a much heavier concentration of Customers travelling to the south and Florida than to the Midwest, and Atlanta offers that connectivity beautifully. We will also seasonally discontinue our nonstop Dulles-San Diego service.
The River-to-River Express: Omaha-Washington/Reagan National Nonstop Service
Our other permanent, new market addition is new nonstop service between Omaha and Washington/Reagan National. Adding one weekday roundtrip, we’ll be the only airline with full-size Boeings in the market and we’ll have the privilege of connecting two great cities. Call it our “River-to-River” express—the Missouri River nonstop to the Potomac!
Additions Galore!
Seasonally, we’re adding new nonstops in 10 markets, converting three markets from Saturday to daily for the “high” season, and adding Saturday-only nonstops in 12 other markets. As always there are a LOT of other frequency changes, including the addition of:
- three more flights per day between Buffalo and Orlando
- three more flights per day between Chicago/Midway and Ft. Myers (for a total of six roundtrips weekdays in each market)
- two flights between Chicago and Cancun (for a total of three each weekday)
- two flights between Orlando and San Juan (for a total of five each day!)
All of the details in that are in the changes spreadsheet that I’ve attached
here.
As always, if you have question, just ask by posting a comment. I’ll be around—and whether or not you have questions, enjoy your week, and thanks for taking the time to read Nuts!
Book today at Southwest.com!
