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Southwest Airlines Community

Keeping Our Intrastate Roots

Bill
Employee
Employee

Most everyone knows that Southwest Airlines started our airline life as an intrastate carrier, flying between three Texas cities: Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston.

Since that day in June of 1971, we've grown far beyond the borders of the Lone Star State--our "red-bellied warbirds" serve 64 airports (soon, with the addition of Minneapolis/St. Paul, 65!) airports in 32 (33 with Minnesota) states.  We now fly from sea to shining sea, border to border, we carry more Customers than any other airline on the planet, and our expansion continues.  But even though we're "all grown up" now, we haven't forgotten our routes--er, I mean, roots

 

Even though we're really big now, Southwest still flies more intrastate flights each day than any other airline in America.  Each day we have more than 720 flights that take off and land in the same state.  And the kicker?  We have more flights within the state of California than we do within the state of Texas!  Southwest offers 362 daily intrastate California flights (Dude! Kewl!) compared with "just" 250 daily intrastate flights within second-place Texas (git a rope!).  Our intra-Cali franchise gets even bigger this May when we add brand-new nonstop service between San Francisco and the John Wayne Airport in Orange County with five daily flights in each direction.

 

Of course, this isn't just a two-way race--Southwest offers intrastate service in seven states.  Besides Texas and California, we connect the major cities within Nevada, Florida, Missouri, Washington, and Pennsylvania.  Nearly one in four Southwest flights is of the intrastate variety.  And there is potential for further intrastate growth—we serve multiple airports in four states (Arizona, New York, Ohio, and Virginia) yet don’t offer intrastate service between them.

So, thanks, Texas, for getting us started.  Thanks, California, for helping us prove that for flights inside the Golden State, the smiles on our faces are more important than smiles on our airplanes.  Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Washington, and Missouri--we'll try our best to help keep you connected!  And, everyone, keep watching our root map--I mean route map.  You never know which two dots we'll connect next! 

 

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