Southwest Airlines unveiled a new special livery today, “Tennessee One” Like it? (Image: Southwest Airlines)
In domestic route news, Southwest will add a number of new flights out of California airports in August; Delta will tack on new spokes from its Salt Lake City and New York LaGuardia hubs; American revives a secondary California route from DFW; and United changes planes on a west coast route out of San Francisco.
Southwest Airlines’ latest schedule announcement says the carrier will begin service August 7 on several new California routes, including daily non-stops from Los Angeles International to Pittsburgh; from Burbank and Ontario to Portland; from San Diego to Milwaukee; and from Sacramento to Baltimore/Washington International. In addition, Southwest will launch new daily service from Nashville to Charlotte, and from Ft. Lauderdale to Nassau, Bahamas. Southwest also said it intends to extend some seasonal routes beyond August to year-round service, including Houston Hobby to Seattle and Portland; Kansas City-Seattle; San Diego-St. Louis; Ft. Lauderdale-Pittsburgh and Ft. Lauderdale-Kansas City.
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Delta plans to resume service on March 2 between its Salt Lake City hub and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., according to Airlineroute.net. The carrier will operate one daily non-stop using A320 or 737-800 aircraft. Another new route for Delta, this one starting April 4, is Delta Connection service linking New York LaGuardia with Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, located between Fayetteville and Bentonville (home of Walmart’s world headquarters). The route will operate six days a week with a CRJ700.
Santa Barbara’s gorgeous airport terminal completed in 2011 (Image: Dreamyshade / Wikimedia Commons)
American Airlines stopped flying from Santa Barbara to its Dallas/Ft. Worth hub in 2009, but now it plans to revive that route. AA will begin daily American Eagle flights on June 2, using a 76-passenger, two-cabin CRJ900.
United Airlines plans to revise its schedule between San Francisco and Eugene, Oregon starting June 9, changing aircraft types and frequencies. United currently offers United Express/SkyWest service six times a day in the SFO-Eugene market, using regional jets. But in June, it will cut frequencies to four flights a day and will switch three of those to mainline Airbus A319s and A320s. One flight will still use a regional jet. The net result will be a 31 percent increase in the number of seats United flies in the market.
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Is Eugene really an independent market for leisure travelers? United is not going to be filling up even A319s with business travelers, and they are leaving themselves exposed to competition with PDX, which is where most of the price-conscious leisure travelers have been going. It’s a risky play for them and could backfire if their load factors drop off as they raise prices from the promotional level with which they would presumably start service.