More details are emerging on the plans Southwest has for their recently acquired slots at Washington’s National Airport (DCA). Starting in August and continuing through November the carrier will add 19 new flights including 7 new destinations, thanks to the divestiture required by the AA/US merger. The growth will come in three phases.
Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
The first three new routes will be added on 10 August 2014:
- 6x Daily – Chicago Midway (MDW)
- 3x Daily – Nashville (BNA)
- 2x Daily – New Orleans (MSY)
Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
The next round of new flights will be added on 30 September 2014:
- Increase to 9x daily – Chicago Midway (MDW)
- 2x Daily – Tampa Bay (TPA)
Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
The final round of growth comes on 2 November 2014:
- 1x Daily – Indianapolis (IND)
- 1x Daily – Akron (CAK)
- 1x Daily – Dallas Love Field (DAL)
- Increase in frequencies to Houston Hobby (HOU)
- Increase in Frequencies to St. Louis (STL)
Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
The overall collection of routes touches mostly on Southwest’s hubs/focus cities. This allows feed to onward connections as well as carrying local traffic and should not come as much of a surprise. Service to Akron and Indianapolis will face competition from American which is keeping service on both routes even with the divestiture cuts.
Overall nothing especially surprising. More of finally getting the answers we expected.
Related Posts:
Never miss another post: Sign up for email alerts and get only the content you want direct to your inbox.
I was just reading this on some local STL sites. The frequency increases from STL-DCA and STL-LAX to 3x per day. They are also adding a non-stop to SFO on September 2nd out of STL. That’s big because United has the only other non-stop from STL-(bay area) and it’s super expensive and a poor time of day. SW is advertising $119 each way where as United is sometimes as much as $1,000 rt from STL on the non-stop. I don’t care much for the outbound 5pm to 8pm flight but the return at 6pm to 11pm flight will be a good one for me as I commute some from SJC to STL. Normally the latest STL bound bay area flight is about 4pm, unless you want to overnight in SLC or DFW. Maybe I won’t lose as much money on the slot machines at the vegas airport now on those forced stops 🙂 btw does anyone EVER hit a jackpot at the airport?