With the recent Europe travel boon finally petering out to be more in line with normal demand, airlines have been putting their efforts toward planning the sun-seeking period that begins when the weather starts to cool and those from northern cities look to break up the gray days with a trip to a tropical destination.
All in the last month, Delta Air Lines (DAL) upped the frequency of its routes to Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands while American Airlines (AAL) announced eight new routes to destinations like St. Lucia, St. Maarten, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the Dominican Republic.
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Last week releasing earnings showing that “urgent and deliberate steps” were necessary, Southwest Airlines (LUV) announced a number of changes that it hopes will turn its finances around — most notably, replacing its famed open seating policy with the ability to pay extra for a pre-assigned seat and starting to run its first red-eye flights in certain markets.
‘Connect these traditionally colder locales with sunny skies and sand’
While these were the more attention-grabbing changes, Southwest also recently announced its efforts to get in on the sun-seeking demand with four new seasonal routes — two flights to Palm Beach, Fla. from Providence, R.I. and Chicago’s Midway Airport (MDW) that will run four times a week each and two flights to Miami from Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio running up to six times a week each.
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Fairly late for the sun-seeking season that can start as early as late October, these routes will launch sometime in January (Southwest has yet to announce an exact date) and run until early March.
“We continue to optimize our schedule for today’s customer — listening to their preferences and responding accordingly,” a Southwest representative said in a media statement first reported by Travel + Leisure. “Southwest is happy to connect these traditionally colder locales with sunny skies and sand during the wintertime.”
Southwest also has not yet announced the exact dates on which the flights will run but said that it would prioritize Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays instead of Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as that is when travelers usually begin or end their vacations.
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Looking to get some sun this fall or winter? You’ve got a lot of options
The choice of cities is also strategic as Southwest will become the only airline to run a flight to Palm Springs, Calif. from the smaller and more central Chicago Midway Airport — competitors run the same route from the larger O’Hare International Airport (ORD).
The flights will be available to book on Southwest’s website in the coming weeks. The impromptu nature of the flights and their late announcement given how close we are to the fall show that Southwest is trying to get in on the sun-seeking travel demand spotted by several airlines.
Back in May, the airline also announced a separate seasonal route between Orlando and the Bahamian capital of Nassau.
While it has always been a popular cruise stop destination or sailing stop on a wider tour of the Caribbean, Nassau has been seeing growing demand from those coming in for their main holiday — the 1.7 million travelers who came to the Bahamas in 2023 is a 17% increase from 2022.
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