Hey all, I hope everyone has had the best holidays they can with everything that has happened. I truly feel awful for everyone that has been stranded or with upended plans. That said, I wanted to share something that you probably have seen circling the internet and social media. This is something a Southwest pilot shared about the whole fiasco that went down and is still happening. I hope everyone is able to get home or to wherever they need to go. Let's just hope this was a big eyeopener for Southwest to upgrade their scheduling and employee management system.
“I don’t know what to say. Southwest Airlines has imploded. Their antiquated software system has completely fried. Planes are parked. Crews are stranded in the airports with the passengers, volunteering to take the passengers in the parked planes but the software won’t accept it. Phone lines are overwhelmed for both passenger and crews. I personally spent over two hours trying to get ahold of anyone in the company last night after midnight. A Captain and I did manage to get the one flight put together on Christmas night and got people home. Kudos to the ops agent and dispatcher for making it happen. We had to manually input a lot of the data and it took over an hour to coordinate with dispatch going back and forth running numbers.
We spent hours trying to get the company to answer and get us a hotel when we landed as they’re all sold out. We were only put in a call que for hours before hanging up. I found one hotel with 4 rooms and we bought our own rooms at 2:30am. I even paid for a Flight Attendants room. We literally have crews sleeping on the airport floors all over the country with nowhere to go. Crews have been calling to fly anyone, anywhere, but the company says the system needs a reset. They have effectively shut down the operations for the rest of year, running 1/3 of the flights so that they can let the computer find and locate the crews and aircraft. Gate agents are in tears. They’ve been yelled at, cussed at, slapped and spit on. Flight attendants have been taking a beating. The frontline employees have had little support or communication. Terminals are standing room only with people having been there for days. Pilot lounges are packed with pilots ready to fly and nowhere to go.
Embarrassing is an understatement. I’m going on my second of three days off, still stuck on the east coast and still expected to show up in the morning with no schedule. And I’m willing to fly all day if needed. Because that’s nothing compared to the passengers needing meds in bags that are lost and mothers traveling with kids, having been stuck for the same amount of days in the terminal. In 24 years, I’ve never seen anything like this. Heads need to roll! Rumors on media are floating that there is a lack of crews and pilots are staging sick calls. Absolutely not true at all. This is a computer system meltdown. Thousands of crew members are sitting in hotels and airports with nowhere to go. This airline has failed miserably.”
Andrew E
DEN (CLT) Based | Aviation Enthusiast | Full of Passion for Southwest
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10-11-2022
09:18 AM
What nonstop flights are you referring to? A lot of flights were suspended due to the pandemic and are slowly coming back as demand recovers. Southwest may be a point-to-point airline, but they still have somewhat of a hub model because there's not enough demand to fly from any airport to every other airport nonstop. The point-to-point model more determines how they select their routes in that they focus on routes that have high O&D traffic and they do that primarily from their focus cities with some nonstop routes outside of those focal points (Ex: Portland, OR to Palm Springs). Southwest doesn't only fly in the southwestern direction 😝
Andrew E
DEN (CLT) Based | Aviation Enthusiast | Full of Passion for Southwest
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I'm curious, what are some city pairs y'all think are that are currently unserved by Southwest that could potentially be viable? I see a lot of posts about routes/markets Southwest should add. It could be nice to pull it all into one thread here.
If you want, post any serious ideas you have about city pairs that currently have 1+ stop itineraries or new markets that you could truly see Southwest serving.
Rules:
1. Please use common sense - serious ideas only, not just ones that would be nice
2. If possible, maybe add a some reasons why you think the market would work (Ex: previously served, market dropped by other airline, migration, strong indirect traffic, etc)*
3. Have some fun!
*Note* Southwest is still working on returning their pre pandemic network, so some routes or desired frequencies are likely in Southwest's plan as they analyze flight/booking/traffic data.
I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!
Andrew E
DEN (CLT) Based | Aviation Enthusiast | Full of Passion for Southwest
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There seems to be a at least one nonstop a day and they're generally $99 to $150 each way which is pretty good for a nonstop from Ohio to Fort Myers. The only high priced flights I saw were either this month of October because it's so close to the depart date and during the holidays (primarily Christmas) which makes sense.
Andrew E
DEN (CLT atm) Based | Aviation Enthusiast | Full of Passion for Southwest
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10-01-2022
09:29 AM
10-01-2022
09:29 AM
You are completely welcome to submit your complaints and though you are true about the customer service interactions, that still doesn't affect the ability to get planes parked at the gate. My point still stands that unless they have the marshallers available and the other crew needed to bring the plane in, the plane will be stuck waiting. If you could expand on the play by play that the pilot was talking about, that would be much more helpful in discussing the original post about waiting for a gate while there are plenty of empty ones.
Andrew E
DEN (CLT) Based | Aviation Enthusiast | Full of Passion for Southwest
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Flights are usually scheduled for certain gates ahead of time rather than being first come first serve. They do this so they can tell passengers what gate to go to, so to limit gate changes for outgoing passengers, they may have planes sit until the gate opens, so that can also be a reason for sitting with empty gates. The empty gates may also not even be Southwest gates, but considering the BWI is a focus city, I'd assume there's a good chance the empty gates were Southwest gates.
There's also the staffing issue where gates may be open, but they don't have the staff to operate them. Airplanes need a marshaller and other personnel to be safely guided into the gate. The pilots can't just park the planes themselves. Even then, there may not be the staff to bring the jetway in or any of the other thing that need to happen before passengers can safely get off the aircraft, so you'd still be stuck on the aircraft.
The airline industry is complex with many moving parts. The ground teams do everything they can to get flights out on time, so the inbound flights can park on time, but there's so many other factors the general passenger isn't aware of that affect all these things including scheduling, staff requirements, maintenance and safety related issues. The number of factors that have to align for any flight to be on time from beginning to end is crazy, so it's actually impressive that we even have all the flights that we do have.
-5280Av8r
DEN (CLT) Based | Aviation Enthusiast | Full of Passion for Southwest
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Austin to Charleston (SC) nonstop is resuming March 9, 2023 as seasonal service. You can check on the Southwest route map via their website and look at nonstop options from Austin.
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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@rich1954 wrote:
I'm trying to find out what cites have nonstop service to Phoenix via Southwest. Any ideas where I can find out this info?
Go to the Southwest route map under the Flight|Hotel|Vacations menu and click on list view. Check the box for non-stop only and then choose Phoenix as the airport in the left column. This will filter the right side to show all non-stop destinations f rom Phoenix or whatever airport you choose.
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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07-05-2022
10:32 PM
1 Love
When booking a flight, under the flight info it will list the plane type. Southwest operates an all Boeing 737 fleet consisting of the older NextGen models: 737-700; 737-800; and the newer MAX models: 737 MAX 7; and 737 MAX 8. They are supposed to start receiving the 737 MAX 7 aircraft this year. So if the aircraft listed is a 737-800, you'll be on that. If it says a 737 MAX 8, you'll be on a MAX 8 and so on.
Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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When you do a flight search on Southwest, it will mark which flight is the cheapest for the day and which flight is the quickest for the day. Most of the options seem to be one or two stop flights on Saturday, so Fort Lauderdale might be better since there's more options and slightly closer than Miami is to Palm Beach.
" There is not currently a non-stop flight on the flight schedule (between now and January 4, 2023), however, one may be introduced when Southwest releases booking for more travel dates in mid-July."
Though it's true that Southwest tends to announce new routes at the time of schedule releases, I find that it would be unlikely they would announce a nonstop route between PHX and PBI. I'd personally say that BNA, HOU, DAL and DEN would all be more likely to see a nonstop to PBI, but we never know with Southwest. I was surprised to see the BNA to HDN route.
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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@Quillen087 wrote:
Why do planes take sudden right & left turns after take off. Sometimes the plane seems to be almost sideways. How is this safe?
In addition to what others have said, it also helps for more congested airports to get planes to take off more quickly due to minimum separations. Airplane one will fly straight, next one will turn right and the next turn left. If they were to all fly the same direction after takeoff, fewer planes would be able to get in the air due to the minimum separation requirement.
Sometimes there's obstacles like mountains or buildings that need more altitude in order to clear them.
More often than not it's because they might be taking off in the opposite direction of the destination airport because pilots don't choose their runway, they get assigned by air traffic control.
Another reason could be noise abatement regulations to avoid planes flying over certain areas.
It's perfectly safe, generally the maximum bank angle is 30 degrees which can feel completely vertical, but it's not.
Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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I'm sorry for what you experienced, that is definitely a frustrating experience.
First, safety first, if a pilot things the tire needs further examination, it should be done as that can lead to even worse problems.
I know this is definitely not helpful now, but in the future, sometimes if you pull aside a flight attendant and ask them about your tight connection, especially if you attach a truthful story of needing to make it otherwise you'll miss the "insert event here," they will contact the people on the ground, and they'll do everything they can for you to make the connection. It's not guaranteed because they want to affect the least amount of passengers, but sometimes asking them while in the air helps a lot (be sure to be friendly when doing so). I know it seems unnecessary because "customer service" but like I said, they try to affect the least number of passengers, so that often means not holding a flight for a singular passenger. Plus, you may have made the flight, but your checked bag wouldn't have and people would still be complaining. It's really a lose-lose for the airline, as they seem to not be able to do anything right in the eyes of some people.
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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The only airlines I know that fly between LAX and SAN are Delta and United. I don't recall if Southwest ever did it. There's plenty of 1 stop itineraries between LAX and SAN, just doesn't seem logical. I don't know why you'd connect through Vegas, just seems quicker to drive, cost may be similar. Heck, I've flown into LAX and driven down to San Diego. We won't know if they'll offer a nonstop connection until they would announce it, so who knows. It can be requested through the Contact Us link below or by social media.
Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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It seems rather small for Southwest, with limited leisure and business traffic. Southwest flies to some pretty small airports (Bellingham, Hayden/Steamboat Springs, Montrose, Fresno, Corpus Christi, Harlingen). All of these are still bigger than Fayetteville, NC because they have either decent leisure or business traffic. If Southwest were to serve Fayetteville, NC, it would likely be to one airport, likely Baltimore or Atlanta. However, I would think that Southwest would just serve these people through RDU.
Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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Southwest is doing really well in Hawaii, so I don't see them pulling out all together. Southwest is third in market share at Honolulu/Oahu; second at Kahului/Maui; third at Kona/Big Island; second at Lihue/Kauai.
I have also noticed a cutback in flights to/from San Diego, Sacramento, and Phoenix. Hawaii flights take up a sizable portion of an aircrafts flying day, so due to plane and crew shortages, I'd assume Southwest has cut some of their under/lesser performing Hawaii routes to increase flight hours for flying within the lower 48 states. They may return, but they may not or they may return many years from now, we don't know.
I've thought about Southwest doing a flight to Honolulu from Ontario since Hawaiian does that, but maybe Burbank would work better. Though it's honestly more likely that Southwest works in flights from Dallas-Love and/or Denver to Hawaii first.
Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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06-27-2022
02:51 PM
06-27-2022
02:51 PM
@Will0329 wrote:
I have always wondered why southwest never offered bur or lax non stop to sea??
The non-stop flights from sea to smf, oak and sjc are always full and southwest keeps adding more non stop seattle flights to these 3 cities.
Southwest flies non stop from sea to phx,las,oak,smf and sjc frequently.
I've always wondered that too and part of it is because of a lack of planes and crew. This fall Southwest is resuming flights between Portland, OR and both LAX and SAN. I wondered why they don't go further up to Seattle. For one, Seattle is a hub for both Alaska and Delta. Even Delta has struggled with Alaska being like 2.5x larger, it's so hard to compete with them. A lot of people in Seattle have the Alaska rewards program which makes it harder other airlines to "steal" those passengers.
Southwest flies frequently to PHX, LAS, OAK, SMF, and SJC because they are large airports for Southwest where they have the largest market share.
@Will0329 wrote:
Southwest also needs more
Southwest also needs more what?
You can request the route through social media or through the Contact Us link below.
If you're so keen on a nonstop to SoCal, you can fly Alaska, Delta, American, United, JetBlue (resuming in October). Otherwise if Southwest's connection through the Bay Area is the cheapest, I wouldn't complain and just take it.
Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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Southwest is resuming nonstop service between LGA and MCO on November 12th, but it will be operating on Saturdays only. My guess is because of crew and aircraft shortages and not being able to compete as well with the airlines that have bases in the NY area. There's daily nonstop flights from Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP) to MCO. It's likely further away from you though than LGA is.
Andrew E
DEN based | Aviation Enthusiast
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06-21-2022
11:36 AM
2 Loves
Well it looks like the problem is going out to Nassau as the return is fine and shows a stop in FLL. Going from RDU to NAS, there's one flight from RDU to FLL and from FLL to NAS. You'd arrive in FLL at 6:25pm while the flight to NAS departs at 12:15pm. There's only one one-stop flight that would get you there in time, but because Southwest will book no more than one plane change and no more than two stop, there's no available flights.
My suggestion would be to make three separate bookings:
1. It's a little wonky but one-way RDU to FLL via BWI to arrive in FLL at 11:05am
2. one-way FLL to NAS leaving at 12:15pm
3: the return all as one, NAS-RDU via FLL
Based on what I found this is the best possible/really the only way to get to NAS from RDU on Southwest. The down side is you have to claim and recheck any bags and re-clear security in FLL on the way there all with a tight connection, so you may get a poor seat to Nassau from FLL.. You can also try adjusting days of travel. For example, SW flys nonstop from BWI to NAS on Saturdays. If this doesn't work for you, try a different airline.
Andrew E
DEN based | Aviation Enthusiast
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@jksobonya wrote:
How can American have multiple daily nonstops to FL airports but Southwest has literally none? MCO nonstops on Saturdays only? It makes zero sense honestly.
A couple things:
1. Aircraft and crew shortage - Southwest is a "point-to-point" airline and wants to offer that nonstop network, but shortages lead to some routes needing to be once weekly, these are usually tight/small leisure routes.
2. Direction of demand and airline networks - the direction of demand is from Philly to Orlando. American has big hub in Philly while Southwest has big hub in Orlando. Frontier has bases at both airports. Spirit has base in Orlando as well. Due to the direction of demand being southbound to Florida, American and Frontier are going to capture most of the Philly locals due to rewards program membership. Spirit competes more with Frontier, hence the three daily flights despite having their base in the opposite direction of demand. Southwest would more compete with American on this route which is difficult.
Looking at another airport. Washington-National (DCA), Southwest has two daily to MCO with five on Saturdays. Same southbound demand. This route has flights from American, JetBlue and Southwest. JetBlue has the smallest marketshare between the three at both airports. American is largest at DCA, Southwest is second. Southwest is largest at MCO with American in 4th. Due to Southwests strength at both airports, they are better able to compete with daily flights. Compared to Philly where Southwest is in 5th place.
Andrew E
DEN based | Aviation Enthusiast
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06-03-2022
12:50 PM
1 Love
It's definitely because of timing of flights. Southwest serves two airports in Costa Rica, San Jose and Liberia. San Jose is served year round from both Houston and Baltimore but I'm pretty sure Baltimore is Saturday only. Liberia is served year round from Houston, Denver (Saturday only) and seasonally from Baltimore (Saturday only).
Considering Southwest currently doesn't have nonstop flight from Seattle or Spokane to either Houston or Baltimore, you're going to have to have a stop or connection to either of those Costa Rica gateways. With Denver, the flight still leaves early enough that you can't get there in time for the departure to Liberia.
I would say if you want to fly into San Jose then Houston is your best bet because you can just fly in on a late arrival to Houston and take the flight out the next day (you would have to book separate tickets requiring baggage claim and needing to check-in 24 hours before for both tickets going to Costa Rica.
If you want to fly into Liberia, Houston is probably still the best option because I believe it is daily operations. Denver is viable, but it is Saturday only. You'd still need to book two separate tickets going there (one to Houston/Denver and one to Liberia). Again this would require baggage claim and check-in online for both to ensure good boarding positions.
The return for both San Jose and Liberia to Seattle/Spokane can be bough separately as one ticket. It is pain to do all the separate bookings, but that's what you have to do until hopefully more nonstops are added from Seattle.
-Andrew E.
DEN based | Aviation Enthusiast
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06-03-2022
12:32 PM
06-03-2022
12:32 PM
One important lingo think that I learned recently too. Nonstop vs Direct flights:
"Non-stop flights behave exactly as they sound; you'll fly straight from one airport to another, with no stops along the way. Direct flights, on the other hand, aren't quite as convenient. While the flight number doesn't change, the term “direct” means the plane may make one or more stops along its route."
There are very likely flights that are direct in the sense that it's the same plane and flight number going from Seattle to San Diego with a stop in Oakland or San Jose. You're obviously looking for the nonstop option. There were a number of routes that were removed during the pandemic or just before to accommodate their Hawaii expansion due to the MAX groundings.
I'm sure it's on their lists since they've said their focus right now is to restore their pre-pandemic network on top of their recent expansion in the last two years. I know in September, they're planning to resume service between Portland and both San Diego and Los Angeles. That said, you should still follow the instructions of TheMiddleSeat.
-Andrew E
DEN based | Aviation Enthusiast
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06-02-2022
04:32 PM
06-02-2022
04:32 PM
I definitely understand the frustration. My biggest issue would be that of price because it doesn't seem to reflect that of a low cost airline. Now a lot of that is due to higher fuel costs right now, so I can give a little slack. As far as the delays and cancelations, all airlines are being affected by weather, pilot/staff shortages, among other things. So, Southwest isn't the only one affected here. Don't forget we're still on our way out of a pandemic. People are still getting sick, so there's going to be callouts.
As far as " Other airlines offer a wider range of nonstop flights and red eye flights! " I will definitely agree with you on the redeye flights and hopefully they're in Southwest's future. As for the nonstop flights, that is true to a degree, but really only if you include long-haul and the regionals (SkyWest, Envoy Air, ExpressJet, etc). Comparing just the domestic mainline networks, Southwest has more airports with more service than most of the legacy carriers. American has the most number of hubs at 10, which means for the most part, on a legacy carrier, you're not going to have service to more than 10 airports unless it's from their hub (American - 10 hubs; Delta - 9 hubs; United - 7 hubs). On Southwest, you can get service to at least 10 airports from a whopping 50 airports! Now some of these are on a more seasonal basis, but that's still a lot of airports with at least 10 nonstop destinations on Southwest. And there's even a lot with service to 8 or 9 airports, not to mention, Southwest has the most nonstop service to Cancun and San Jose del Cabo in Mexico.
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Airlines, like Southwest, don't always maintain the same flight numbers throughout the year. So your flight number next month or a few months from now may be operating different flights currently.
I just looked up a flight on Southwest from DEN to OAK on July 17 and chose a random flight number from a nonstop and just as for you, that flight number was not operating that flight currently.
These may change because of new routes, route resumptions, or even aircraft scheduling. Your flights should happen, but in the event that they don't, you have one free flight change if Southwest ends up changing your flight.
-Andrew E
DEN based | Aviation Enthusiast
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That sounds interesting. I know a great deal of airport codes already considering I use them in my excel wishlist sheets for various airlines and airports.
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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05-08-2022
02:08 PM
05-08-2022
02:08 PM
Southwest is primarily a leisure and point-to-point airline (with very large focus cities, lol). Because of this, they are constantly determining days and times that people want to fly particular routes and adjust schedules accordingly. Because of the possibility of shifting times/days/frequencies from schedule update to schedule update, Southwest may take awhile to compile the schedule. Other airlines like American, Delta, and United operate the same flight at the same time every day, so they can much more easily allow bookings further out. For Southwest, it would cause more customer service headaches with an increased likelihood of flight changes which still happen with the current system.
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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05-08-2022
02:01 PM
Southwest's booking system currently isn't set up to handle foreign currency transactions, so they rely on flights where the demand is largely from the US and with people paying in USD. So if the demand leans towards arriving in Monterey, Mexico rather than departing from, then it could be possible for Southwest to consider it, especially if the demand is large enough. Otherwise, it might have to wait until Southwest has the ability to process foreign transactions.
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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05-08-2022
01:55 PM
05-08-2022
01:55 PM
Southwest offers service from Nassau to Baltimore (BWI) and Fort Lauderdale (FLL).
NAS-FLL is daily; arriving in FLL at 3:30 pm
NAS-BWI is seasonal and only on Saturdays; arriving in BWI at 4:05 pm
Unfortunately the nonstop Saturday flight from BWI to LAX is at 4:05pm
There is no nonstop from FLL to LAX, but there are some connections in both FLL and BWI, which probably all involve a plane change, and with a plane change in FLL/BWI, Southwest won't book a flight with more than one plane change. You can still do a manual multi-city reservation, but make sure you have enough time for every connection.
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This is a leisure focused route, so Southwest seems to be operating 4 nonstop flights on Saturdays during the end of June and probably throughout the summer. Compared to now where they have daily flights between the pair.
https://www.southwest.com/air/flight-schedules/results.html?departureDate=2022-06-19&destinationAirportCode=MCO&originationAirportCode=PHL&scheduleViewType=weekly&timeOfDay=ALL_DAY
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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05-08-2022
01:38 PM
05-08-2022
01:38 PM
I'm confused as to why you need to book more than 6 months out. Could you explain why you can't wait for Southwest to release the schedule which will probably happen by the end of the month?
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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According to a search on Southwest's Schedules, they have a Saturday only nonstop flight ISP-PBI in April.
https://www.southwest.com/air/flight-schedules/results.html?departureDate=2022-04-03&destinationAirportCode=PBI&originationAirportCode=ISP&scheduleViewType=weekly&timeOfDay=ALL_DAY
-Andrew E
DEN Based | Aviation Enthusiast
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