ST. LOUIS — After a busy Labor Day weekend, Southwest Airlines Co. is already preparing for spring.
Dallas-based Southwest published its latest schedule extension Thursday, offering flights through April 10 of next year. The carrier is bringing back dozens of seasonal routes including a number through St. Louis Lambert International Airport, where it's the busiest carrier.
Denver and Las Vegas stand out as a couple of the biggest beneficiaries of the schedule extension. The carrier also unveiled a new nonstop seasonal route between San Diego and Eugene, Oregon.
“We continue strengthening our network across North America with some of our largest schedules ever for our Denver and Las Vegas customers, and we’re thrilled to give everyone an ability to book now and plan their spring vacations early,” Adam Decaire, vice president of network planning, said in a statement.
Southwest (NYSE: LUV) regularly extends its flight schedule by 6 to 10 weeks at the end of where booking previously had been available as a standard course of business.
The company hopes to continue building off its recent momentum. After taking a loss in the first quarter, Southwest rebounded by more than doubling its profit in the second quarter and hauling in record revenue as travel demand surged. The carrier also canceled fewer than 1% of its flights in the second quarter. CEO Bob Jordan told analysts in July that demand trends remained strong in the third quarter.
The momentum continued during the recent holiday weekend, and Southwest operated more than 14,800 flights carrying more than 1.5 million customers. The company reported a flight completion factor of 99.3%, representing its lowest Labor Day weekend cancellation rate in four years.
Like other airlines, Southwest has a limited capacity as it deals with an industry-wide pilot shortage and tries to ramp back up after the Covid-19 pandemic. Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said during the July conference call Southwest expects capacity in the first quarter of 2023 to be up 10% versus the same period in 2022.
In the schedule extension, Southwest doubled down on its two biggest hubs. The airline plans to fly its largest-ever March schedule from Denver, with up to 270 departures a day. Southwest will also fly its largest-ever schedule from Las Vegas in March, with up to 243 departures a day.
In Denver, Southwest is also growing its international network by adding seasonal service on Saturdays between the Mile High City San Jose, Costa Rica, subject to government approval. Southwest already offers Saturday service between Denver and Liberia, Cosa Rica. Other international destinations from Denver also currently include Belize and several cities in Mexico.
Denver is the fastest-growing airport operation in Southwest’s network and has grown to become the airline’s largest hub. Southwest has 32% market share at Denver International Airport.
Las Vegas is Southwest’s second-largest hub. Southwest is the largest carrier at Harry Reid International Airport with 38% market share.
Seasonal routes are ready to take off
In addition to the new Denver-San Jose route, Southwest also plans to fly a new nonstop seasonal route on Saturdays between San Diego and Eugene, Oregon. That route will begin on March 11.
Southwest is also bringing back more than 70 other seasonal routes. Some of those include:
- Daily service between Panama City, Florida, and St. Louis. Weekend service is returning between St. Louis and Montego Bay, Jamaica, as well as between Lambert and Pensacola, Florida, and Orange County, California.
Read more about Southwest's season routes on the St. Louis Business Journal website.
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