N830MH

Yes, please do speculation. Any routes, any new international flights.

I think FLL-HAV to swap for MIA-HAV to additional HAV slots. I doubt that.

You will see some specific routes is:

TPA
BWI
DAL
HOU
PHX
LAS
ISP
BOS
MDW
MSY
STL
MCO

Let the speculation begin!

MAH4546

I would guess Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas are the no brainers. Maybe Atlanta too. And also San Juan and Havana.

Cledaybuck

I would think places like ATL, BNA, and DEN are way more likely than MCO, TPA, or BOS.

beyondhere

For MIA:
I assume BWI, ATL, DAL and BNA for domestic mainland US. MDW is also a possibility.

From what I remember pre-Covid, Southwest wasn't all that high frequency on MDW-FLL and fares were higher than comparable length northeast-FLL flights like PVD (smaller market, same distance). It's also said that Midwesterners also prefer going to the Southwest part of Florida. If it wants to keep FLL fares high from MDW, it might not want to jump in on MDW-MIA adding more nonstop seats to the same region.

From BNA, it's shorter and Southwest is also the largest carrier in Nashville. Might as well offer the Nashville FF an expanded South Florida offering with MIA service.

synergistic

I'd really like an extra western destination flight - DEN, LAS, PHX? If they're looking for origins for this winter, though, I'd imagine more Midwest and Atlantic cities. Plus some of their faux hubs.

beyondhere

I expect FLL will still be the primary South Florida airport for Southwest, and MIA more like a complementary station. So, FLL will still likely still have the flights to the non-hubs, at least the mainland US domestic stations. I'd be surprised if say Southwest added PHL-MIA and ran it in replace of PHL-FLL or even side by side with it, seasonally and at low frequency. That'd seem much more like a Frontier strategy.

As for my MDW comments, I just remember moving to Chicago in 2013 and underwhelmed by Southwest's presence on MDW-FLL relative to even PHL-FLL, given that Chicago was so much larger of a Southwest hub and Chicago being a larger US city than Philly. Southwest was the last to recognize it was competition in the Chicago-So. Florida market, from Spirit at ORD. Southwest was charging rather high fares like over $150/one-way weeks in advance in non-peak season. It's almost like it was fine filling connection seats, and seats for premium loyal local passengers, and not concerned about the rest. Did it's CHI-So. Florida strategy change more recently, pre-covid? I'm also a little doubtful with it cutting MDW-EWR before covid, and the fault on the EWR side. It's also on the MDW side too, since it was a high frequency market.

Cledaybuck

Agreed. I expect FLL to MIA to be similar to OAK to SFO (not that I expect FLL to grow to OAK's size).

ktremor

Looks like Las Vegas will be one of the players in both new routes

https://www.reviewjournal.com/?p=211...KRVo8ABkRim910

beyondhere

I wonder if SRQ is being considered. Like MIA, SRQ was another Florida destination that AirTran offered. Both MIA and SRQ were covered from BWI.

I also wonder how long Southwest is not in EWR. If it's likely on the horizon to return, or off the grid for a long time.

N830MH

So Southwest! What are you waiting for?!!? Come on Southwest. Please add SRQ and EYW.

Please reinstate EYW. Let it be.

MAH4546

The article doesn’t say that but it’s poorly written so I get where you can infer it.

N830MH

I think they will be next new city to be announced. Colorado Springs, Jackson Hole, Billings, MT or Bozemen. MT and Fresno, CA.

Boraxo

These are the first destinations in a long time that bring a smile to my face. PSP is an awesome airport that is just a short drive to most of the major resorts in the area and I really miss the VX flights (now run by AS). I am sure there are plenty of us who would be happy to fly from OAK.

As for MIA, there are times when it is far more convenient than FLL depending on your ultimate destination (or perhaps even an international connection to another carrier). So nice to have MIA added to the mix.

Very shrewd move by WN management to snatch market share (or what's left of it) when their competitors are gasping, But I expect no less.

Agreed. In theory ONT made sense but in practice it was awful due to the massive traffic jams on I-10. We vowed never to fly there again.

There is a massive contingent of bay area folks that fly/drive to Palm Springs for vacation so I'd have to think OAK would come before PHX. However LAS makes sense as a hub/spoke for the folks connecting from eastern points. Particularly as O/D traffic to LAS is currently gutted.

ryw

Excited to see PSP (though as someone who often travels to east LA and the San Gabriel Valley, ONT still hits the sweet spot for me, and I hope there's not a significant reduction in service there!).

I feel like PSP probably will have service to OAK to help maintain the robust intra-CA network and west coast connections, and then service to at least one of the "hubs" further east for connecting traffic from the middle/eastern part of the country - maybe PHX, LAS, or DEN?

beyondhere

Originally, the plan was to grow FLL to something a lot larger than it was earlier last decade.

Article from 2013:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/today...teway/3989343/

I recall it tried adding EWR-FLL and IAD-FLL and restored PHL-FLL to year round, maybe in 2016 or 2017, supposedly to feed the international gateway traffic. But it was a very short lived attempt. I think Spirit and JetBlue interfered with FLL growing larger. Then in 2019, runway work at FLL, and MAX were cited for any route reductions, but I don't recall Spirit cutting destinations or frequencies in the Northeast to FLL. Meanwhile Spirit just grew.

On the west coast, Southwest used to run high frequency routes like LAX-SFO, SAN-SFO and some other intra west.

In the east coast, the business model appears different. High frequency is limited mainly to BWI and even at BWI, it was just a few routes (BOS, MCO, FLL and flights to other hubs like ATL and even that was scaled lower like 6x daily - not 10x daily, but there is a lot of destinations out of BWI). This was all pre-pandemic, but I assume some of the strengths like BWI and challenges (like Spirit) will still be relevant when travel demand increases.

I'd be surprised if it does a high frequency service at MIA, but maybe if AA is in bad shape, Southwest will get aggressive.