Southwest to begin flights to Boston

By Richard N. Velotta

Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009 | 4:21 p.m.

Southwest Airlines, McCarran International Airport’s busiest carrier, will begin flying to Boston’s Logan International Airport by fall, the company announced today.

The Dallas-based airline, which averages 218 round trips a day through McCarran, had no details on whether it would offer nonstop flights to Boston from Las Vegas. The route currently is served by US Airways with two flights a day and JetBlue with one a day.

Southwest currently flies to Providence, R.I., and to Manchester, N.H., each about a 90-minute drive from Boston. The airline indicated its Boston schedule would start conservatively, using two gates at Logan and that the Boston service would supplement existing flights to Providence and Manchester.

Southwest began flying to Providence in 1996 and Manchester in 1998. Currently, Southwest offers one nonstop flight a day to each city from Las Vegas.

Southwest executives said the company’s schedule optimization strategy is enabling the company to add Boston routes at a time when the airline is cutting 4.4 percent of its seat capacity over 2008. In Las Vegas, the airline has cut about 7 percent of its capacity since January 2008.

The Boston announcement bolsters Southwest’s strategy to serve major metropolitan airports as well as secondary airports. Next month, the airline will inaugurate service to Minneapolis with eight daily round trips to Chicago’s Midway Airport.