jaguar

By Richard N. Velotta
<[email protected]>
LAS VEGAS SUN

The only airline busier than Southwest at McCarran International Airport is America West -- after the sun goes down.

Tempe, Ariz.-based America West has made its mark in Las Vegas by scheduling dozens of flights after 8 p.m., including a number of "red-eye" trips to the East Coast that leave McCarran after midnight and arrive as the sun comes up the next business day.

Now, Southwest is considering the addition of late-night flights from Las Vegas to several cities east of the Mississippi River.

Southwest hasn't made overnight flights because it previously flew to few cities in the eastern United States. All but one of the cities added to its system since 1996 are in the East, so the overnight service might make sense now, Chief Executive Gary Kelly said Tuesday at a New York conference sponsored by Citigroup Smith Barney.

"We have a broader network, border to border," added Southwest spokesman Ed Stewart in a telephone interview today.

Stewart said while Southwest is considering late-night flights, the company's focus will continue to be on developing its presence at Chicago's Midway Airport and expanding at Philadelphia, where the airline inaugurated service earlier this year.

Stewart said another reason Southwest hasn't focused on overnight flights is there were other opportunities elsewhere that made more sense.

He said there were no contractual restrictions in existing labor contracts regarding the operation of late-night flights.

Las Vegas is Southwest's largest destination city with 185 flights a day, recently surpassing Phoenix, where the airline has 183 daily flights. At the end of the third quarter, about 39 percent of the Dallas-based airline's capacity was in the western United States, with an additional 16 percent in the Southwest.

In a recent interview with In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Sun, Kelly said gate capacity is an issue the airline often faces in the markets it serves. But the company would be able to offer more than the average 10 flights a day from its gates if they were in operation after midnight.

Representatives of McCarran could not be reached for comment today on their reaction to the Southwest plan and whether the airport has been approached by Southwest about future gate use.

The airport has plans to build a bridge connecting the C-gate and B-gate terminals to give Southwest and America West the potential for additional capacity.

America West has 111 daily flights between its mainline and America West Express commuter operations.

channa

I frequently use redeyes on other carriers, and more often than not, these flights are packed with a mix of business and leisure travellers. JetBlue also has had success with redeyes. I think the old stigma of redeyes being unbearable is gone.

I think this is a hole where WN can get better utilization out of its aircraft. Markets other than just LAS could justify it as well (e.g., SEA, OAK, LAX, PHX just to namea few).

Mr. July

With the new n/s 2 a.m. arrival at BWI and the slew of late departures to eastern destinations (arriving after midnight) that came with the Oct. schedule change, red eyes would be the next logical step.

As for other western cities, probably would perfer to bolster current daytime transcon n/s and direct service first.

LAS concessions are awful in the WN concourse. Would the bridge open up any decent options?

WN LUVS U

They started some late flights on this last schedule change. For example, there is now a 6p.m. departure LAS-BWI flight.

swaluvr

^ This is great news. I really hope that they add Cleveland to the list of "red-eye cities".

We recently used the 9 am non-stop and it was great, but McCarren was literally over-run with departures. The security line had no less than 200 people in it and every gate was overflowing. We were on paper tickets and even though WN had 36 ticket agents working, it took almost 15 mins. to get to the desk. The addition of overnight flights would allow for less congestion in the early morning hours.

Another advantage would be that we often travel to LV with our teenager. Flying at night would prevent his missing a full day at school--as happens now when we have to travel home on a weekday. This last trip, if we could have left in the late evening on Sunday, he would have been able to attend school on Mon. As it was, Monday was just wasted flying.....

formeraa

Probably is an attempt to run HP out of business.

wwonka

I would love a redeye from vegas to hartford.
that would be awsome.

peace
wwonka

WebTraveler

This is good. Typically Southwest has avoided red-eyes, but now this has the potential of supplying the west coast with many more connections to back east. This also leaves open the chance of even more frequency to Las Vegas from west coast cities to hook up with new east coast flights.

Dan Burgess

I hadn't thought of that -- some California business travelers heading east could work all day, take a 5pm flight to LAS, (maybe run to Tropicana or MGM to play for a couple of hours) and then take a 10pm departure east, arriving at sunrise.

Then again, maybe not. That sounds like a rough day.

lassen2545

Those business travelers would rather to earn 6000 miles than 3 rr ponits.

uastarflyer

And/or fly in F or the very least their assigned exit-row seat.

But this would be great for the east-coast partyers who want to actually spend the entire wknd in Vegas, not just Fri night to Sun noon. Good move WN! ^

i_buy_swa

My friend almost left his all savings in Vegas that way.Once he lost his final dollar and called me to buy a Greyhound tix to get back home.

nsx

If this actually happens, I will have to re-write 28a in the FAQ.

Also 30 b.

milesrus

Hey Jaguar, get off this Southwest forum, and bounce back to LatinPass and fill us in on the KLM to Europe Scoop!

Boofer

LOL. That's just Vegas for you. For as busy an airport as they have, the city sure does a poor job making it convenient and pleasant. Maybe it's part of the old casino strategy - keep the customers inside the place; I'm just waiting for them to wind the security lines around the slot machine banks.

You ought to consider flying ATA. They have redeyes back to both MDW and IND. You could connect at MDW to TOL - might be worth it if you can get to the TOL airport fairly quickly/easily from home. Or take a cheapie CO hop over to MDW and combine it with the ATA flight. For that matter, CO has a new redeye that leaves LAS at 2345 Sun night and arrives CLE 0635 Mon morning. There you go.