Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 | 2:37 p.m.
Southwest Airlines’ newly announced spring schedule adds two flights to and from Las Vegas at a time when the airline is cutting its national schedule by 22 flights.
McCarran International Airport’s busiest carrier announced that it would reinstate its daily nonstop flights between Las Vegas and Norfolk, Va., in its April 27 schedule change. The airline also will add a ninth daily nonstop round trip between Las Vegas and Oakland, Calif., bringing the total number of nonstop flights to and from the Las Vegas market to 207 a day.
In a Southwest Airlines blog posting today, Bill Owen, lead planner for the airline’s schedule planning department, said opening reservations through June 3 is providing the largest booking window in the airline’s history at 239 days. Owen said the expansion of the booking window is in response to customer requests.
“It’s a mixed bag of plusses and minuses,” Owen said in his post. “We’re not quite as busy in late April and in May as we are in March, so this schedule overall contains slightly less flying, a net decrease, for now, of 22 flights.”
Systemwide, Southwest will have 3,394 flights with the spring changes.
Most of Southwest’s schedule reductions are seasonal and affect markets in Florida and Phoenix.
In addition to the two flight additions for Las Vegas, Reno-Tahoe International Airport picked up a third route to and from Portland, Ore., in the spring.
Owen said Southwest isn’t through tinkering with the spring schedule because the company hasn’t worked out details for its introduction of new service to airports in Charleston and Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., next year.
Southwest hasn’t given any indication whether it would offer nonstop service between Las Vegas and the South Carolina destinations.
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