Southwest beefs up Vegas schedule by eight flights

Thursday, March 25, 1999 | 11:06 a.m.

Southwest Airlines, the No. 1 airline at McCarran International Airport, is adding eight new Las Vegas flights this summer.

The Dallas-based airline announced today that among the eight flights will be new nonstop service to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Chicago's Midway Airport.

The new Chicago and Baltimore service will give Southwest customers access to all 54 cities to which the airline flies directly. The airline recently announced expansion to Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Islip, N.Y.

"The resort owners have asked for this long-haul nonstop service to the East Coast and Herb (Kelleher, chief executive officer of Southwest) has delivered what he promised to them," Roz Santangelo, Southwest's Las Vegas-based spokeswoman, said.

Santangelo was referring to a meeting Kelleher had with several local resort executives in November at which Southwest was encouraged to develop more long-haul routes to serve the city's expanding market on the East Coast.

Executives have contended that the city is underserved on long-haul routes and that Las Vegas customers complain they are inconvenienced by having few direct flight options.

Southwest will add a third daily flight to Tucson, Ariz., and a second daily flight to Seattle on June 6; a second daily flight to Austin, Texas, a third daily flight to Nashville, Tenn., and two Chicago-Midway flights on July 6; and a ninth daily Reno flight and the Baltimore flight on Aug. 5.

The different start-up dates correspond with the delivery of new Boeing 737 jets to Southwest's fleet. No routes will be eliminated anywhere on Southwest's system and the number of daily Las Vegas flights will grow to 148 when the last flights are added.

Southwest also announced the fares of the new Chicago and Baltimore flights. A full-fare flight to Chicago -- the maximum -- would be $592 round trip with a seven-day advanced purchase fare going for $356. The full fare to Baltimore would cost $610 round trip with the advance purchase going for $370. Those prices don't include about $10 in passenger facility charges and taxes per ticket.

Southwest will roll out its nonstop service to Midway -- the smaller of Chicago's two airports -- at about the same time Las Vegas-based National Airlines inaugurates service between McCarran International Airport and two destinations, Chicago-Midway and Los Angeles.