Southwest Airlines has confirmed interest and application to begin serving Long Beach Airport, with plans to start the route within the calendar year. The carrier has formally applied for slot authority for their new service, which is subject to requisite approvals.
Should Southwest be granted permission to serve the Long Beach route, it would be the fifth airport in Greater Los Angeles on the airline’s route map. It currently flies to Los Angeles International, Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, John Wayne Airport in Orange County and Ontario International Airport.
The airline - who carries more domestic passengers than any other US airline - has added ten new non-stop services across the country, yet has also discontinued routes. The new services will begin between March and April 2016, including St. Louis, Missouri to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois to Dayton, Ohio and Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia. Discontinued flights include Flint, Michigan to Baltimore, Las Vegas and Orlando – yet, Flint will gain a route to Chicago Midway Airport.
Southwest Airlines has scheduled flights to Liberia, Costa Rica beginning this year, subject to foreign government approval. As of January 2016, the airline has scheduled service to almost 100 destinations, within America, Puerto Rico and abroad.
January 2016 has been a successful month for Southwest, with increases across the board. The number of trips flown is up 3.9 percent to 103,660, whereas passenger revenue miles has increased by 11.1 percent compared to January 2015 to 8.9 billion. Southwest is continuing to plan for 2016 year-on-year available seat mile growth in the range of five to six percent.
Southwest not only bring more air travellers to and from California, but it has more daily departures from the state than any other airline. From the four California airports currently being served by Southwest, the combined peak weekly schedule accounts for 678 departures to the US and Mexico.
Gary Kelly, Chairman, President and CEO of Southwest said: “Long Beach would make it five for five in greater Los Angeles for Southwest and would give us another service point to fulfill our promise to connect our California Customers not only to what’s important, but also to where is important in planning business, vacation, or personal travel plans.”
According to MIDT data, Southwest carried more than 216 million estimated passengers on departures from California over the ten year period between 2005 and 2014, an average rate of over 21 million passengers a year, or almost 60,000 per day.
After growing its traffic in California during the 2000s to a peak in 2007, passenger numbers on the Southwest network from the State were in decline, according to Sabre Airline Solutions data up until 2011, when they fell back below the 20 million threshold. However, year-on-year growth in the three consecutive years has seen levels grow back to almost 22 million.
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