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Summer is Here—Summer 2017 Schedule is now Published!

Bill
Employee
Employee

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I realize it is crazy cold in most of America, but it’s summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime!  At least for the Southwest published schedule, anyway . This morning we published the June 3 through August 14, 2017, schedule, including a completely re-optimized summer schedule which will begin on June 4. Lots of seasonial frequency and block time changes will reflect the movement into summer (see attachements), with quite a few permanent market entries. Let’s discuss!

 

FT. LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL ADDITIONS!
The construction of our new international Concourse A at Ft. Lauderdale (FLL) is expected to be finished by summer 2017, and as promised, Southwest will expand our footprint with added new domestic AND international service.  We will add new nonstop daily service between FLL and Washington/Dulles and Philadelphia as well as five returning roundtrips each weekday between Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando.  We’ll also add new daily international roundtrips between Ft. Lauderdale and Belize, Cancun, and Montego Bay.  Additionally, we’ve filed our intent with the DOT to serve Grand Cayman from Ft. Lauderdale! These new flights join existing international service between FLL and Nassau, Bahamas, and Varadero, Santa Clara, and Havana, Cuba.

TAKE THE I-5 NORTH….
Our first-ever nonstops between San Francisco International and the Pacific Northwest will begin next summer with three daily roundtrips between San Francisco and Portland.  Besides linking two of the most beautiful cities on the Pacific, I like to say we’re providing a link between San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore on Columbus Avenue with Portland’s Powell City of Books downtown on Burnside.  Both have to be seen to be believed—but fair warning, you can easily spend a whole day in either of them!

We will also add new permanent nonstop service between San Diego and both Boise and Salt Lake City as well as seasonal nonstops between San Diego and both Spokane and Indianapolis.  At San Jose, we will reinstate daily nonstop to/from Reno-Tahoe. This will be Reno’s second route to the Bay Area, complementing our existing three daily nonstops to Oakland.

 

NEWS FOR NEW YORK!
Southwest will begin our first transcon flights to and from Newark-Liberty by adding daily roundtrip nonstop between Newark and both Oakland and San Diego!  Also new next summer will be nonstops between Newark and Indianapolis, replacing our current New York/LaGuardia-Indianapolis service.  LaGaurdia will pick up twice daily nonstop service from Tampa.

ODDS AND ENDS
We’ll take “Odds and Ends” for $1,000, Alex!  And the answer is, next summer Southwest Airlines will add new nonstop between Atlanta and Cleveland, and between Nashville and Minneapolis/St. Paul.  Please see chart below for those as well as some interesting weekend and seasonal service changes, as well as a handful of seasonal and permanent market eliminations.

 

QUESTIONS?

 Just add a comment and either I or another of our Network Planning bloggers will respond (if needed!).  Happy New Year, everyone!   

8 Comments
ober7212
Adventurer C

 Woohoo!  Gotta LUV the BNA-MSP route! Thanks Southwest (and Bill)!  

 

I see the reduction in ATL, which makes sense up against BNA, regionally.  

 

My Wish List for MSP: 

- add back LAS, year round

- something to Cali/PNW

- DAL/HOU

- Northeast - BOS before JetBlue does

- Florida - maybe more than seasonal.  I remember flying to MCO non-stop in Nov '13 and the flight was less than half full.  I bet that would be different now!

 

Take care and thanks!

Steve O

Tjob
Explorer C

How about a few times a week Portland, ME (PWM) to Chicago (MDW) in the summer months?   Maine is flooded with tourists, June-August, from all over the US.   You tried Saturday only in the past, but the tickets were outrageously expensive, so you may have gotten low volume based on that.  Friends fly to BOS or MHT, then drive up, to avoid the high fares. 

 

Don't ever drop free bags or no change fees.   If you do you will officially be "ONE OF THEM."

 

TJOB

Ken_Wiseman
Explorer C

When will Southwest ever fly to the United States Virgin Islands, St. Thomas?

 

You have Jet Blue and Spirit flying there for some time along with the legacy carriers, so it must be profitable for them? 

 

Has there been any discussion as to regular service to STT? 

Bill
Employee
Employee

Cruiser,

 

I think we're all wanting MSP-LAS to come back eventually.  And the rest of your suggestions all of have merit--they just have to bubble to the top of the "next best opportunity" list.  And eventually they will!!

 

Bill

jmcgillivary
Explorer C

What is the reason for eliminating the early morning (2 before 9:00am) flights from MSP to MDW?  These flights are regularly full and make travel from MSP convenient to other SWA cities.  I cannot figure out the reason for this change.  Any thoughts?

Sallweiss
Explorer C

I see that as of June 2017 you are removing the first flight out of Burbank to Oakland.

I'm on this flight roughly once a month and it is always sold out. From your standpoint why eliminate a flight that  has to be moneymaker for you?

From the traveler standpoint this creates a problem for those of us that do day trips to the Bay Area. That 7:00am flight(flt 777) is our only shot at getting up in time for a morning meeting. Without that flight my only choice will now be to go up the night before, which is both expensive and time consuming.

Please reconsider putting this flight back in the schedule.

kev27lin4
Explorer C

We don't fly a lot, but always use Southwest out of CAK if possible.  I just booked CMH to OAK, as the direct is just too good to pass up.  I also booked an Orlando trip in June on Spirit, yes, Spirit, out of CAK.  We just don't do Cleveland!  I get it.  It's a business.  We will miss you at CAK.

dchamp06
Explorer C

My wish list:

 

ATL to SLC direct - I HATE that I have layovers but every other airline from ATL to SLC has at least one nonstop option per day.