Southwest has added more dots to its route map during the pandemic than any other U.S. Southwest's 18th new city launches in November Stay up-to-date on airline and aviation news by signing up for our brand-new aviation newsletter. 5, 2022, giving flyers a head start at planning trips for early winter. While the airline’s most recent flight to West Palm Beach, Florida, was announced July 28, they still have room to grow, including adding some of the destinations that were once served during TWA and American’s most prominent days.The Dallas-based carrier has been growing like a weed throughout the pandemic, and that trend continues with Thursday's announcement of two new destinations, as well as a slew of new and returning routes.Īs part of the news, Southwest is also extending its bookable schedule through Jan. Southwest does not seem to be done with expansion however. Southwest continues to grow at Lambert, now operating to 44 destinations, soon to become 45 as the airport gains its first international destination offered by Southwest to Cancun, Mexico starting in November of 2017. These gates in the concourse went through renovation in the first-half of 2017, with the bill for the changes estimated to have been around $700,000. Louis break into Southwest’s ten busiest cities.Īlong with new flights, Southwest has shown its growth with expansion of operations within the airport, re-opening some gates in the D Concourse that haven’t seen passengers since the glory days of TWA. By 2013, Southwest had upped daily flights to a total of 95, serving 35 non-stop destinations. Much of Concourse D was shut down during 2008 in part due to the decline of American and the decline of the airport as a whole.Īlthough passenger numbers fell to their low of 12.3 million in 2010, due to the presence of Southwest Airlines, numbers began to rise again, reaching 12.7 million by 2012. Due to cuts across all of American Airlines, numbers fell again in 20, reaching a new low of 12.8 million passengers. While numbers slowly climbed over the following years, they never reached their peak, topping out at 15.4 million passengers in 2007. By 2004, passenger numbers were down around seven million from the previous year. These cuts also saw a major decrease in total passengers at Lambert. As of Novemthe hub went from 417 flights a day down to 207 flights daily. In July 2003, American announced a major route cutting plan that included halving the number of daily flights operated at St. Unknown to many at the time, cuts within the coming year would make the 2001 cuts seem minimal. For comparison, DFW saw a 6.7% drop while ORD saw a 6.5% drop in numbers. This number also made it the American hub with the most traffic lost. Louis had seen a 16.9% drop in traffic, a number large enough to be the eighth biggest drop in the country. However, Congress ended all restrictions at O’Hare, rendering the idea of the reliever hub as redundant as traffic was no longer forced to avoid Chicago.īy September of 2002, St. Part of the reason American first introduced STL as a hub was due to slot restrictions, limiting ORD to only 155 flights per hour. Louis quickly saw another blow to its hub status in July of 2002. While traffic numbers across the country suffered, the numbers at Lambert were affected due to how flights were cut and the transfer of traffic to regional aircraft. There were almost twice as many flights operated at St. Louis was American’s third busiest hub behind DFW and just behind ORD. By the end of 2001, American had cut flights to 450 per day, while many other flights were shifted to American Connection.Īt the time of the first major cuts, St. Due to less traffic at other hubs, the need for STL to be a reliever hub quickly decreased. With travel demand rapidly declining following the September 11 attacks, traffic numbers quickly fell not only in St. Unfortunately, the times of 500 daily flights would be short lived. After some schedule modifications, TWA and its regional carrier, Trans World Express, both fully owned by American, operated over 500 daily flights out of STL in July 2001. When American Airlines completed its merger with TWA in 2001, it desired to turn STL into a reliever hub for its two main hubs at the time, Chicago O’Hare (ORD) and Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW). Louis has seen a major decline in service along with losing their hub status from American Airlines, and seeing Southwest Airlines take over as the dominant carrier in the city. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL). In the United States, given the last decade of consolidation among airlines, most hub airports will likely stay hubs for their respective airlines for years to come, with only growth or minor downsizing as time goes on. Airline hubs are generally not the kind of place that change much in terms of service.
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