N830MH

https://www.nnbw.com/news/2022/dec/1...p_zRvqccZkAqN0

Southwest looking for big expansion in Vegas sooner than later. More new routes, adding more new nonstop, and new international flights, as well.

Let the speculation begin!!

Dracarys

Would love a direct flight from RSW.

Peoriaman1

Personally, I'd rather they restore more nonstops to ONT.

MrsWLV

I love the idea of international routes (hello weekends in Mexico!), I’ll very happily settle for a return of the nonstop routes that we had in 2019. And some of the frequencies too!

Anywhere on the road

What is really intriguing to me is the proposed 'relief' airport. This is the first that I heard of it. Didn't think an airport could be placed in more of a 'no mans land' than DEN was ~27 years ago. Alas, I think the area between Primm and Jean fits that bill.

Cledaybuck

How exactly do they expect that to work? No one is going to want to fly out there if LAS is still an option, and I don't see LAS being shut down.

vegasbased

Before the recession when they paused the airport construction, I think the plan was to send cargo traffic and then sand passenger traffic to LAS.

Beckles

The basis for this speculation is this quote:

Hundreds of thousands of additional flights per year? This is total BS.

Bear96

I'd put more credence in the story if they had a quote from an actual WN leader or spokesperson about the supposed expansion. Connecting the dots that one of their officers living in LAS means there will be "a major development and major increase in their traffic over the next couple of years"* on the order of "hundreds of thousands" of additional flights (annually), claimed by a rah-rah local Chamber of Commerce type of cheerleader / booster-person, makes me a little skeptical. But I am cynical by nature.

* Actual quote from the article and boosterperson:

Quote:

They have one of their chief executive officers who lives in Las Vegas, so they are looking at a major development and major increase in their traffic over the next couple of years.

smmrfld

I think any reasonable interpretation of the comment would assume it referred to the number of additional pax, not flights.

Beckles

Southwest carried over15 million passengers at LAS in the first ten months of 2022, hundreds of thousands more per year would not be a significant increase.

flyer4512

MSP/LAS nonstop debuted daily just before covid.............then of course it was gone as nobody was flying.

I would LOVE to see a daily ( or at least March - October ) MSP/LAS and LAS/MSP.

Delta appears to have 4 - 7 ( depending on time of year) daily non stop MSP/LAS.

Sun Country and Spirit also offer NS service MSP/LAS so I would guess there are enough passengers for WN to get it's toe in the water.

winston vickers

The Ivanpah airport was proposed years ago for a couple of reasons. They wanted to attract cargo and get them out of California and congested LAX basin. They wanted to attract more international trans pac flights and make it a connecting point for other US cities. Think a Korean Air flight arrives and DL is waiting. LAS is surrounded by the city and there’s not much more room to build and thousands of folks moving in every month. One idea was to limit flights into and out of LAS to 500 miles, getting the vast SoCal market easy access to the strip. Carriers howled at the idea of selling customers tickets from the east coast to the new airport and then make them take a shuttle/tram to the strip for 30 miles. I know that WN is expanding LAS, BWI and DEN. Just waiting for aircraft .

Anywhere on the road

Man, I really hope that BWI expansion you speak of includes more than the paltry handful of non-stops presently offered anywhere west of DEN. I've probably said this in other threads, but, I could nab any one of numerous daily non-stops to PDX, SAN, SMF, SLC pre 2020.

Peoriaman1

Did they actually start building it? I was looking for it on Google Earth but I don't think I went far enough.