palmetto86

I know the legacies make major adjustments to schedules for Thanksgiving and Xmas travel. For example, DL and UA take widebodies that would be going to Asia and Europe and redeploy domestically on the days before and after these holidays. They also have banks of flights that leave much later than normal to accommodate the extra demand (not redeyes, but flights that leave after 11pm and arrive 2-3am).

Looking around WN's schedules, it doesn't seem like it makes any changes at all. The frequencies I see seem pretty much the same for a Wed or Sun. Since WN is a *domestic* airline, I understand that they don't have planes to pull from other places. I'd still expect them to do some shuffling, but I just don't see much evidence of it. Am I missing something?

toomanybooks

Correct. WN does much less in the way of changing schedules around than legacies do.

Exiled in Express

Christmas seems to be a late start for SWA. There are exactly two MSP departures before 9AM, both to the west. I ended up booking a Delta nonstop surprisingly at a lower price than the Southwest connection.

PHXflier

In my experience, with WN the changes in schedule on busy/quiet travel days are mostly addition or deletion of early morning or late evening flights; easy to do without needing additional equipment.

737MAX

I've noticed more -800 departures for some cities than normal but that's usually about it.

jco613

WN has a lot more flights in the 5:00 hour and has flights leaving as late as the 11:00PM hour on Sunday. Most cities will probably have the same amount of flights, with the times being way off, but some routes will have 1-2 extra flights.

Honestly, I remember years ago jetBlue flew overnight flights in peak times...now it seems like all of the legacies are jumping on board. I think the UA thread pointed out multiple departures from ORD AFTER MIDNIGHT!

troutmd

I know they add a few LBB-HOU nonstops around this time. I never understood why they don't make that a permanent flight. The one stop DAL to HOU is usually 50% or more full of threw passengers...

I am in AMA though now. I didn't see any schedule changes....

airplanegod

Taking a one-time late night departure to MCO tomorrow night. I still don't know where WN sends their 737-800's, I only got to fly on one once.

Wingrider

I was on a early AM LAX->SJC flight last week and it was a -800. Normally those SJC<->LAX runs are relegated to -300/-500s more often than -700s. Even with a continuation, that was an interesting deployment of that aircraft and it was pretty much a full flight.

Kevin AA

A one stop flight, while less convenient than nonstop, allows them to serve three routes with one plane LBB-DAL, LBB-HOU and DAL-HOU, instead of just LBB-HOU (and one less DAL-HOU). Love Field has been a Southwest hub since day 1.

palmetto86

Since I was the OP, I thought this article is relevant. Seems like something Southwest could easily do if these guys can fill planes on banks that late. Particularly DEN and/or MDW because of their central locations.

http://crankyflier.com/2015/11/30/ai...mally-operate/

lougord99

WN's IT, at least as of a year ago, cannot schedule flights that land later than 2:00am Central time. Changing this is a major undertaking.

jco613

Didn't they have flights leaving after 11PM PT Sunday? Or were those all blocked at under and hour?

Also, that article left out a few flights AA had from DFW leaving as late as 1:30 AM (to LGA I assume because of a curfew). They'll do this all over again during the New Years holiday!

lougord99

It is possible that it was 3:00am, but I am pretty sure it was 2:00 am. If intra - CA then no problem.

RoyalFlush

This past week, I saw multiple -800s at PBI and FLL.

My last -800 routes were PDX-MDW and MDW-IAD.