It’s been talked about for eons, and now, it is actually happening. Southwest is going to start its first redeyes on February 13 with an arrival on Valentine’s Day in the first five markets. I spoke with COO Andrew Watterson to learn more about the airline’s plan.
When it launches in Feb, there will be five redeyes:
- Las Vegas-Baltimore
- Las Vegas-Orlando
- Los Angeles-Baltimore
- Los Angeles-Nashville
- Phoenix-Baltimore
In LA – Nashville, this is actually a new trip in the market. In the others, it’s just a retiming of an existing frequency. In some cases, the westbound flight may move to feed the redeye, but in others, it’s just really about freeing up aircraft time so they can do other things during the day. Remember, at Southwest, it’s rarely just a simple out-and-back, and aircraft flow through the system.
These redeyes actually solve a lot of problems for Southwest, especially with connectivity. Since COVID, those evening West Coast flights have been weaker as business travel day trips have dropped. Now, those evening trips from, say, Burbank to Las Vegas, will bring more passengers to connect on to the redeyes.
Further, those early morning originators from the airline’s biggest cities to smaller stations could use the help as well. When that airplane lands in, say, Baltimore, passengers will be able to connect right on to that morning originator to, say, Manchester (NH).
I know what you’re saying… these are just five flights. Big deal. But more will be coming quickly. This first round was designed to go between the airline’s crew bases just to make sure that everything is working as planned.
The second tranche will come quickly in March, followed by the third tranche in June. That will be the initial build-out with another round expected to come in 2026.
The biggest question in my mind was… when do Hawaiʻi redeyes come? After all, that adds real utility for travelers who can’t get from the islands to the east coast on Southwest at all. It will be coming in one of these initial rounds, but exactly when has not yet been determined.
Southwest knows that the redeyes from the islands are really important, so it will happen. Some of these will end up replacing the morning/mid-morning flights that help create connectivity to the Midwest now, but it isn’t clear if those morning flights will go away completely. This seems unlikely since Andrew mentioned that travelers from Hawaiʻi to connecting western destinations like having the ability to do it without a redeye.
I was also curious to know if anything would be different on a redeye in terms of onboard experience. The answer is no. It’ll be just like any other Southwest flight. Southwest has its crews divided into AM and PM, and these will just be operated by the PM crews flying later than normal.
This is just one more effort by Southwest to improve utilization on its fleet to help lower unit costs. It pairs with Southwest’s efforts to reduce aircraft turn times by 5 minutes. This isn’t just reducing scheduling of turns but actually fixing processes to make turn time shorter. That’ll start to be reflected in the schedule in November.
43 comments on “Southwest’s First Redeyes Arrive on Valentine’s Day”
The timing of this announcement suggests it might be made to respond to the recent moves by the activist investor group, Elliot. If that is the case, it simply reinforces the criticism that Southwest is way too slow to innovate or make positive changes.
Sometimes we all need a kick in the butt to move us in directions We’ve been too slow to initiate. I think that the red eyes are not the only good thing here, but that seat selection and premium economy will be at least as positive both for the airline and the customers.
I don’t actually have much opinion on this. I prefer seat assignments so there’s that.
I will say that the recent trend on social media about railing against preboarding on Southwest has been pretty grotesque (why do you care so much about other people? Where do you get off presuming the capabilities or accommodation needs of strangers you know nothing about?) so if these changes chase those types of prejudicial tools off the airline, it would be a benefit to the rest of us.
If you fly Southwest regularly, the preboarders are significantly greater in numbers than other airlines. It slows down the boarding process or Southwest needs to better staff porters to help preboarders get on the plane faster.
The reason people have with Southwest’s pre boards is that there any many people who pretend to be disabled, or greatly exaggerate their condition, to game the system.
They move ahead of people who paid extra to board early…and take good seats from others instead of waiting their turn.
That’s going to be done soon.
I’ve been a preboarder before… on southwest… as you know about as much as me as you do anyone preboarding a flight today, you tell me, should I have been?
Or we can go down to the nearest Southwest hub (BWI for me) and you can point out which ones, with your expert knowledge on this, are faking it.
I’ll even let you accost them directly… that or you are welcome to look up works like “prejudice” “ableism” “hidden disability” in the dictionary (I’ll give you a hint, it’s right next to “none of your business” and see what they say
But when those same people are walking off the airplane after having been wheeled on, does that still make him an ableist, or calling people out for gaming the system? We’ve all seen it, and it has gotten out of control. It’s not to say the majority are faking it – it’s that many are taking advantage of the situation and thus making it worse for those who actually need the extra time. The idea that those with disabilities of all types should be able to pre-board is not the issue – those who need it SHOULD have more time to board. On Southwest, the difference is, you’re fighting for your seat once you get on and hope for the best. If I have my seat ahead of time, I can be last, and I don’t care who boards before me.
Yes. And on other platforms people are discussing their own medical conditions (geart conditions that makes it difficult for them to stand for a long period of time which happens in boarding and not exiting, peolle with sensory issues, other stuff) and reasons why they use preboard, even though, and I cannot stress this enough, they are under no obligation to explain themselves or their personal/health needs to other passengers.
Again I fail to see why some people obsess about this, especially on southwest. Preboarders can’t take the exit rows so you are literally obsessively judging others over the difference between 2-4 rows of the exact same types of seats and service.
Mike has obviously never worked in an airport and head to deal with a flight full of fake preboarders. Numerous times, we’d be told to expect 12 wheelchairs on arrival, get the wheelchair vendor to send 12 pushers over and only 3 come off.
Nope. Instead I work with and on behalf of people with disabilities, many of which are hidden so they need to face the stigma of judgement at work, in life, when travelling, from people who know nothing about them so throw around words like “fake” to mask their ignorance. Your life sounds rough tho
Yes, there are people who have disabilities that you can’t see who should pre-board.
Yes, there are people who take advantage of the system and can magically walk off the airplane after needing a wheelchair to board.
These are not mutually exclusive, and everyone except for the cheaters should be happy about assigned seating. For those who do have a disability and need the extra time, they won’t have to endure the angry stares any longer. And for those who do care about where they sit who don’t have a disability, they will no longer care how many preboarders there are.
I agree with this
Well.. looks like it won’t be an issue any longer
Completely agree, nor will it be a much-discussed issue in a few days
It’s not pre-flight they get exposed. It’s at the end of the flight when they get a miraculous burst of energy and all of a sudden have no problem de-planing, etc.
I’ve been a preboarder before… on southwest… as you know about as much as me as you do anyone preboarding a flight today, you tell me, should I have been?
Or we can go down to the nearest Southwest hub (BWI for me) and you can point out which ones, with your expert knowledge on this, are faking it. I’ll even let you accost them directly… that or you are welcome to look up works like “prejudice” “ableism” “hidden disability” in the dictionary (I’ll give you a hint, it’s right next to “none of your business” and see what they say
He didn’t say that. This blog has a reliably civil and thoughtful comments section; I hope you’ll consider giving his intentions the benefit of the doubt.
It seems to me that one can suspect, at the whole-airline level, that WN has a problem with its preboarding system, without asserting the right to question or “means-test” individual preboarders. The two are just different things. The way to handle the problem (if one exists) is to change the policy, which is what’s happening now.
You want southwest to “means test” people who have disabilities and you think that will increase operational efficiency?
And people can leave civil comments that are nonetheless prejudicial or presumptuous… the obsession about preboarding is one of those because it’s not rooted in concerns over efficient boarding as much as it is bizarre jealousy over who gets seat 4A…
Mike, I travel several times a week, and I travel on many different airlines a year. No one begrudges legitimately disabled or challenged people from having assistance getting onto an airplane.
What many of us see, however, are people pretending or greatly exaggerating their condition to game the system, and board ahead of everybody else. Further, Southwest has many more preboard wheelchairs than other airlines.
This is basically like using a fake handicap sticker to park in a handicap space at the store or mall. That’s what our problem is.
There is no number of flights you can take a week or a year that qualifies you to prejudge the needs or disabilities of those in the preboard line.
That is unless you were a medical doctor which case you’d be trained enough to know how ethically wrong it is to presume the severity (or not) of someone’s disability or medical needs who is not your patient.
So, Mike, are you saying no one is preboarding when they don’t need to? And that SWA shouldn’t ever question whether people are taking advantage of the current system?
What is your solution? Do nothing and don’t investigate?
Yes. Nothing. What do you want them to kick the walkers out from people and see if they fall? In fact eliminating barriers to reasonable accommodations is what many of us in the disability field advocate for.
And it’s not even that much of one. And no, having to sit in row 6 when you wanted to sit in row 4 when they are the exact same experience is not an undue burden onto any user. I swear 96% of flyers get this and don’t care.
It’s just today with southwests changes that the 4% of self important people, so self important they feel they should get to insert themselves into other people’s medical and personal decisions are having the loudest voices…
Well… sounds like Mike is someone who abuses the policy which is why he’s so upset.
People with medical conditions can still pre board. They just have to go to the seat they pay for
Southwest may not have redeyes, but they do have late departures off the West Coast that arrive on the East Coast post-midnight. These flights easily connect off the early flights from Hawaii into LAS and PHX. The HNL-LAS-BWI itinerary actually has a 2 1/2 hour layover in LAS.
There are also current connections in LAS to ATL, TPA, PIT, CLE, MCO, BUF, & CMH.
IIRC part of reason WN was doing intra islands in Hawaii was to maximize aircraft utilization due to the lack of red eye. It will be interesting to see if there is any impact on the intra islands schedule after the introduction of red eye. Since folks enjoy the non redeye flights back to west coast, it sounds like those redeye are more likely come in as additional flights to existing ones rather than moving existing ones to the evening.
The comment about decreasing turnaround time is interesting. I fly them a lot in the evenings, and it seems to me that they still have a problem with snowballing delays. Do they plan to decrease *scheduled* turnaround time? Or just to get more efficient and run their existing schedule more reliably?
grichard – Good question. It’s both. So the overarching thing here is a plan to reduce actually time need to turn an airplane by 5 minutes. That’s a process change, automation, etc. In some cases they will reduce the scheduled turn time, and that’ll show up in the November schedule. In others, it’ll just become buffer. So this is a mix.
In my anecdotal experience, Southwest is overly optimistic about its ability to turn planes quickly. As you correctly point out, the afternoons are rife with snowballed delays and they will magically turn the plane in 20 minutes. Now throw in assigned seats, I think they will have a real problem shaving turn times. Especially in the short term as people get used to looking for their seats.
Missing the opportunity to have the offer the Herb Kelleher bedtime experience – a double shot of Wild Turkey, along with an AI-generated MPEG of Herb gently singing a lullaby.
How will redeyes affect the flow-through aircraft utilization? I’d imagine that strategy works best when every plane remains overnight somewhere; that gives time to reset after any delays during the course of the day. But if a plane does a red-eye, it doesn’t have that opportunity. If planes are on complicated schedules rather than out-and-backs from hubs, I imagine it’s easier to swap planes out to deal with delays like this. How big an operational challenge will this be for Southwest?
The announced redeye markets depart from hubs so they will have swap opportunities if they need to recover a line of flying.
Alex – Southwest has said that this won’t ever grow to be an enormous chunk of flying. It will only be some of the aircraft and that still leave slack in the system. I don’t think this is really going to be an issue, but we could look at it once the June schedule comes out.
Make me wonder if “assigned seating” will help enable “5 minute faster turn-around times” given Southwest’s challenge with “too many pre-boarders”?
Perhaps Southwest has data that shows their boarding times are now longer than other Airlines, perhaps due to the implication of their Open Seating, Pre-Boarding, Business Select, and A-List policies and programs?
I look forward to Southwest offer their customers more choice, convenience, and control. I believe their App and Website will have to have functionality extensions to match the capabilities of many of their competitors.
Somewhat sad if it is indeed Elliott that is forcing these decisions in a changing marketplace.
Cranky, since SWA is moving closer toward the big 3 (assigned seats, premium seats, and Red-eye’s), they need to then “own” hubs like the 3. SWA is strong in BWI, BNA. STL, MDW, DAL, OAK, SAN, LAS, and very competitive with AA and UA in PHX, AUS & DEN, The old adage in business: “Change or Die” is what they are facing. Good first steps to improve revenue and lower operating costs, now truly create strong East-West Hubs in MDW, STL, and DAL with BNA & BWI as North-South hubs. Build more connectivity into BWI-MCO for Caribbean and HOU for Mexico. Eventually move to out and back model at Hubs to lower overnighting costs of crews away from their home base and most importantly this would allow them to avoid weather meltdowns by being able to isolate the problem to one hub. So all Cranky readers I just gave you something truly to discuss on this page about good old SWA.
Part of Southwest problem has been that the places that they have hub operations are often and direct competition with fortress hubs from the big boys.
Love field is opposite Americans massive operation at DFW. And Denver they have to deal with United and to a lesser extent frontier. Midway has both American and United to deal with.
And even Baltimore has large hubs on either side of it at Dulles, Reagan, and Philly.
They are getting significant pressure both from the legacies on one side and the cheapos on the other.
We will see where they land in terms of how they set up their service. We will see if they had premium seating, and how they set up the rest of the seating in the plane (if they shrink the pitch on the non-premium seats).
In Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and Baltimore the “Southwest airport” is significantly more convenient for a large fraction of the metro area than the “legacy hub airport”. Especially when you factor in traffic, it’s not surprising that many customers are willing to pay a premium to fly from a closer airport.
People definitely cross-shop across airports, but a flight would have to be significantly cheaper or more convenient for a customer in the Baltimore area to deal with driving down to DCA or up to PHL, potentially in rush hour traffic.
I live in the Dallas area. It used to be true that love Field was more convenient to more of the population. That is no longer the case at all.
Love field is very difficult to get to for a lot of people, because you have to fight traffic going into downtown Dallas to get there, plus it is well off the freeway.
There is good freeway access to DFW from all directions, and the traffic isn’t as bad.
I see your point about Baltimore though.
All that noted, my point was more regarding using these airports as hubs and not for local traffic. All of these compete for hub traffic with fortress hubs of the legacies.
Southwest doesn’t have an Atlanta or DFW operation to work from, so they have less economy of scale to work with,
Agreed….BWI is my home airport and it’s Baltimore’s airport AND also serves the DC market (not just one of three in the greater region). We have a business and gov’t services sector here that travels quite a bit, along with substantial leisure traffic.
Cranky: there are FIFTY ways to lose your lover. 5-0
But I’ll give you a pass as you’re not old enough to remember that song when it was new and very overplayed…..
As someone who flies semi-frequently with my family and young kids, I’m very curious to see the specifics of how they implement assigned seats.
If they enable passengers to get assigned seats that keep their whole group together at no additional charge, then this will be a big win for families. Boarding a Southwest flight as a family is currently a stressful and somewhat high-stakes process – if you aren’t ready when “families with young children” are called, then you have a real risk of needing to split up your family during the flight.
If they do the Spirit/Frontier/Basic Economy implementation of assigned seats (“Pay a fee to pick seats together, or else we will give you random seats that might split your group up”), then this would be strictly worse. When I fly Spirit or Frontier, I feel forced to pay for assigned seats to keep the group together, and the seat selection fees often end up being a substantial fraction of the overall purchase.
Randomly assigned seats are fine – I don’t really care where in the plane we sit, I just want to keep my whole family together. I’d be totally fine with a system like:
– You can pay to pick a specific seat for $XX, or
– We’ll assign your seats at check-in, but guarantee we’ll keep your group together (unless you bought the ticket so late that that’s not possible)
Logistically a little tricky but I think feasible.
If open seating was so wonderful, all the other airlines would have implemented that process as a cost-saving, customer service improvement. This would be similar to how all the frequent flyer peograms went to revenue-based earning. Monkey see, monkey do. But no other airline did that for open seating!
#openseatingfailsinthemarket
Now that Southwest has finally adapted to the dictates of the market, nothing further need be said.
I thought WN has been flying redeyes for a while? They just called them ‘delayed flights’ ???
Is it just my experiences or has SW gotten incredibly slow at boarding, often have nuisance delays (25-40 minutes/ delay with no advance heads up, or a posted 20 minute delay that translates to a 35-40 minute delay), and they never seem to even remotely be in a hurry to board quickly or make up time. It seems to me they should not schedule less turn time.