Southwest Airlines

Routes Americas 2022 will facilitate collaboration between key aviation stakeholders.

Last year Southwest Airlines operated scheduled service to 122 airports.

The LCC said it needs a ‘buffer’ as it hires new staff.

Southwest Airlines conceded it will not fully restore pre-pandemic capacity levels in 2022 as planned citing ongoing staffing issues.

A total of 13 routes are being launched from the secondary airports in Chicago and Houston by Frontier, most of which are served by rival Southwest Airlines.

The carrier is also resuming a slew of grounded routes next summer.

Recent high-profile meltdowns were mainly caused by a reluctance of workers to pick up overtime shifts during periods of high stress such as bad weather events and IT system failures, the CEOs said.

The ULCC is expanding in South Florida with a focus on rival Spirit’s home airport.

Worldwide capacity remains around 71% of pre-crisis levels despite a reduction in Europe.

Southwest Airlines remains in the midst of a hiring push to alleviate operational challenges it encountered during the third quarter, but the airline is also turning attention to building up network depth over the next year to recover more quickly from irregular operations.

The network additions will increase the carrier’s network from the Idaho capital to 15 destinations.

The carrier objects to giving eight peak-time slot pairs to low-cost operators.

Nine new routes are being added to the airline’s route map from the Texan airport.

Sixteen peak-time slots at Newark Liberty will be made available to a low-cost operator in order to increase competition with United Airlines.

Southwest Airlines and United Airlines announced updated employee vaccination policies, as U.S. carriers experiment with carrots and sticks to incentivize greater vaccine uptake among their workers.

Southwest Airlines President Tom Nealon has retired from leading the company just a few months after being passed over to replace outgoing CEO Gary Kelly.

Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines announced plans to increase their employee hiring targets, part of an effort to address staffing shortages amid a strong U.S. domestic summer travel season.

US airlines are planning to scale back capacity in September, blaming the proliferation of the COVID-19 Delta variant.

Southwest Airlines warned that it does not expect to be profitable in the 2021 third quarter (Q3), as a spike of COVID-19 infections associated with the new delta variant appears to be harming demand for air travel.

Southwest Airlines could exercise up to 44 options for Boeing 737 MAX jets in 2022 to either fuel growth or accelerate retirements of older 737-700s.

The Florida airport has not been connected to London since a Gatwick service ended in 2020.

Southwest Airlines pilots said a staff shortage caused by an aggressive schedule ramp-up and training bottleneck is exacerbating operational challenges plaguing the company in recent weeks.

The move comes as the airline cites improving revenue trends and a strong domestic travel recovery in the U.S.

Daily passenger throughput at US airports has been approaching the 2 million mark on peak travel days

Routes looks at the current state of the growing US-Mexico transborder market in the wake of the FAA’s decision to downgrade Mexico’s safety rating to Category 2.