Just as the weather’s getting chilly, Southwest is heating things up again by opening up our schedule for next summer—along with a LOT of exciting new service! We’re now accepting reservations all the way out to August 10, 2012, on both the Southwest network, available at southwest.com, as well as the AirTran network, bookable at airtran.com. This will give us 271 days of bookable inventory (which translates into roughly 3.8 Kardashian marriages), which is among the widest booking windows we’ve ever offered. I’ve got lots of details—so let’s dive in!
We’ve got new service to talk about! On the AirTran side, we’re adding new service between Ft. Lauderdale and San Juan, Puerto Rico, with two daily flights starting May 24, which will help South Floridians “get their mofongo on!” Of course, this is in addition to our existing AirTran service between San Juan and Orlando, Tampa, Atlanta, and Baltimore/Washington. Then we turn our attention to Mexico, as AirTran will file for authority to fly the following routes: San Antonio to both Cancun and Mexico City beginning May 2012, and Orange County, Calif. to Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City beginning June 2012. Both Mexico City and Cabo San Lucas are brand new destinations for AirTran, and we’ll announce schedules for all the new international service and make them available for purchase at a later date—but what’s cool is that this will be AirTran’s first international service from San Antonio, and it’ll be the first international service EVER planned from Orange County’s brand new international terminal!
Domestically, we’re adding new AirTran nonstop service between Mile-High Powerhouse Denver and Dayton (one daily roundtrip), Akron/Canton (one daily roundtrip), and New York LaGuardia (two daily roundtrips). We will also add new seasonal AirTran service between Baltimore/Washington and both Seattle-Tacoma and Los Angeles (two daily roundtrips each), and between Baltimore/Washington and both New Orleans and San Francisco (one daily roundtrip each). And because we’re now using Southwest’s schedule optimization engine for the AirTran schedule, there are lots of market-level frequency changes, and we’ll continue to “tweak the freqs” (making minor changes to frequencies in nonstop markets) after we open for sale … so stay tuned!
On the Southwest side, we expect Summer ’12 to be a busy one! Just as we’ve done on the AirTran side, we’ve completely re-optimized the Southwest network for the June-August schedule. We’re adding seasonal new service between Houston Hobby and Seattle-Tacoma, Kansas City, and Raleigh-Durham (one daily roundtrip in each), all of which are brand new nonstop markets for us, as well new nonstop service between Chicago Midway and Oklahoma City (which has been one of our most frequently asked-for new markets!). We’re also bringing back seasonal nonstop service between Nashville and Seattle-Tacoma, between St. Louis and San Diego, and between Norfolk and Las Vegas. In total, we “tweak the freqs” (I’m starting to love that phrase!) in a total of 61 roundtrip markets. Forty markets see slight increases, 21 see minor decreases, and after everything is tabulated, the Southwest network grows by 36 daily departures for a total of 3,398 Southwest flights each weekday.
Stoke the fires, enjoy the winter, but start dreaming of next summer … then make some plans AND some reservations. Southwest and AirTran are ready for you! Have a great week, everyone.