Southwest Airlines has added another route to its network—this time between Austin and San Francisco. The airline is no stranger to this route, though, having last operated between the two cities in 2019. It has also expanded its offerings from Orlando with several routes within Florida.
The low-cost giant is busy capitalizing on increased demand during the holiday season and has even revised its Q4 estimates due to better-than-expected passenger numbers. The airline also recently released its Thanksgiving holiday operational performance figures, flying almost 3.5 million passengers during the busy period.
New flights from Austin and Orlando
Southwest Airlines
has expanded its network by adding flights between Austin–Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) and San Francisco International Airport (SFO). According to a report by KXAN Austin, the carrier will start deploying its planes for non-stop flights between the two destinations from August 5, 2025. The report adds that currently, passengers have the option of booking this service until October 1.
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Southwest last operated between Austin and San Francisco until the end of 2019, and it’s unclear whether the airline plans to offer this service on its network year-round or as a seasonal offering.
The budget carrier will join United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, which both currently offer non-stop flights between the two cities. According to aviation analytics company, Cirium, the two carriers have a total of 337 return flights on this route in December. Delta Air Lines will also offer an Austin-San Francisco flight in June next year.
Southwest will also expand its network within Florida and offer four new intra-Florida flights starting August 2025. Ishrion Aviation reported on this on X (formerly known as Twitter), and the post said that Southwest will operate twice-daily flights from Orlando to Fort Myers, Miami, Sarasota, and West Palm Beach.
Austin gets busy
Austin has seen several new flights being added to its operations in recent times. Earlier this year, Southwest launched two new routes out of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Reno, Nevada.
Delta Air Lines, too, has been focusing on Austin lately and has added several new routes out of the airport, all slated to start next year. Recently, it added a Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) service out of Austin that will begin in May 2025. The carrier will use its Embraer E175 aircraft for this service.
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Before that, Delta also added five new routes from Austin – to Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP), Indianapolis International Airport (IND), Memphis International Airport (MEM), San Francisco International Airport (SFO), and Tampa International Airport (TPA). These will be operational between March and June next year.
The airport, however, will lose one flight in March 2025. Hawaiian Airlines will remove the Austin-Honolulu service next year, a decision made following its merger with Alaska Airlines.
With all these plans for additional flights, Austin Airport will also be mindful of increasing the strength of its ATC staff, given that it currently faces a crunch of air traffic controllers to maintain smooth operations during the busy travel season.
Related
Austin Among Top US Airports Facing Impact From ATC Shortage This Holiday Season
ATC staff shortage is currently affecting many airports across the US.
Cashing in on leisure demand
Coming back to Southwest, the airline is happy with the current quarter’s performance. The carrier is witnessing better-than-expected travel demand,
which resulted in a revised Q4 estimate
.
Southwest recently said that it now expects Q4 unit revenues to increase between 5.5% and 7% year-on-year (YoY) as opposed to the previous estimate of revenue per available seat mile (RASM) rising from 3.5% to 5.5%.
The carrier stated that the new estimates are “driven by the combination of better than expected leisure travel demand and faster than expected benefits from actions taken to mature the Company’s revenue management techniques and better optimize the booking curve.”
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
Indeed, if Southwest’s Thanksgiving holiday figures are anything to go by, the carrier has been attracting plenty of passengers this season. During the Thanksgiving holiday period between November 25 and December 1, Southwest flew almost 27,000 flights carrying 3.46 million passengers.
It also achieved all this with an 88% on-time performance and a 99.9% flight completion factor – its best Thanksgiving period in the past five years.
