Las Vegas to gain flight in Southwest reshuffling

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, March 26, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

Southwest Airlines will cut 116 of its 3,370 daily flights nationwide in August, but the good news for Las Vegas is that it will have a net gain of one daily flight as a result of the seasonal change.

Southwest, the busiest carrier at McCarran International Airport with an average 215 flights a day, will end its nonstop service between Las Vegas and Washington’s Dulles International Airport when the new schedule takes effect Aug. 15. The carrier also will delete one of its 11 daily round trips between Las Vegas and Reno.

In a blog posting on Southwest’s Web site, Bill Owen, lead planner for Southwest’s schedule planning department, said the cutbacks are mostly seasonal reductions from the busy summer travel season and were developed by Southwest’s computerized schedule optimization program that projects profitable routes based on historic booking data.

Southwest routinely cuts and adds flights by season to take advantage of booking patterns.

Las Vegas will lose daily round trips to Burbank, Calif. (from 12 to 11 daily flights), Oakland, Calif. (from nine to eight), Philadelphia (from two to one) as well as the Reno and Washington-Dulles flights.

But the airline will add a flight to Denver (from eight to nine), Oklahoma City (from one to two), Orlando (from one to two), Seattle (from four to five) and two new flights to Orange County, Calif. (from six to eight).

The single Las Vegas flight reduction was the only change in the schedule for Reno-Tahoe International Airport.