After more than 50 years without scheduling a single redeye flight, Southwest has finally made the move. The initial batch of redeyes start in February, but the airline just released its summer schedule and the airline will be up to 33 routes by then.
I think conventional wisdom suggests that this is mostly a way to reduce unit costs, something that has been a real concern at Southwest as of late. By flying long-hauls overnight, the airline can increase utilization, and that lowers unit costs. This is absolutely a great benefit, but there is more to it than just that. This helps to improve the airline’s network.
I’m going to use a couple of examples to show what I mean, but first, let me start with the map we used in this week’s Cranky Network Weekly showing which flights will operate as redeyes next summer.
The benefit in Hawaiʻi has been discussed regularly, and it’s obvious. Because of how far it is from there to the East Coast, not operating redeyes means that it is just about impossible to fly too far east without spending the night somewhere. Now, Southwest can fly redeyes from the islands to the Western US and connect from there, or it can fly daylight flights to the Western US and connect to redeyes from there.
But there is a real benefit to travel within the mainland as well. As you can see on the map, the biggest city on the East Coast is Baltimore. It has redeyes from 12 different cities as far east as Denver. Every decent-sized city on the West Coast has a redeye to BWI with the strange exception of Oakland. I have no idea why Oakland is redeye-free, but that’s probably a question for another post.
As a resident of Long Beach, I was semi-excited to see that even we will get a redeye to BWI. (If you’re wondering why I was semi-excited, it’s because I always like to see us get new destinations… but you will not find me on a redeye if I can avoid it.) With that in mind, I decided to take a look at a random July Monday in 2025 and compare it to 2024 to see just how this changes the game.
Long Beach has 3 fewer daily flights in 2025 than in 2024. That’s primarily because poor performers to Colorado Springs and Kansas City are gone. Salt Lake also drops from 2x to 1x daily. But more notably, Chicago drops from 2x to 1x daily while BWI gets that new flight. I imagine these last two changes are related.
Chicago is of course an important destination, but it’s also the most useful connecting hub to the Northeast US without flying to BWI. The addition of a redeye to BWI allows Southwest to maintain connectivity around that region while being able to reduce Chicago to 1x daily. That should improve profitability in that market.
It’s the same situation in San Diego and in San Francisco, though some cities keep their Chicago frequencies and just enjoy the additional connectivity BWI offers.
I should note that the filed schedule in Long Beach doesn’t show any of the reduced turn times that Southwest has been talking about. If anything, Long Beach has some flights with slightly longer turn times, so that benefit has yet to be built in. That makes a year-over-year comparison cleaner.
This isn’t just about Long Beach, however. Looking through the West Coast cities, there was one that really stood out: Seattle.
Outside of Las Vegas which has five redeyes, it’s Los Angeles and Seattle that have the next most redeyes at four. Los Angeles may not be very surprising, but Seattle has never been point of strength for the airline.
The new redeyes from Seattle go to BWI, Chicago/Midway, Houston/HOU, and Nashville. Southwest hasn’t flown BWI daily since before the pandemic. Last summer it came back at 1x weekly, but now with the redeye, it goes daily again. Houston last flew before the pandemic while Nashville last flew daily in 2021. It was 2x weekly last summer, and it will be 8x weekly next year. Chicago already flies today, but it now has 1 flight move to a redeye.
This vastly improves Southwest position in the region. Seattle in summer is a huge destination, so this will make it easier for Southwest to serve its customers in other cities who want to go to Seattle. Connectivity through the east isn’t always that great, so this is a real change. And redeyes make the change possible.
In these situations, Southwest can decide whether it makes more sense to fly the airplane or sit it on the ground on the West Coast overnight. If that’s the choice, then you’re really only talking about variable costs that need to determine whether a flight is worth operating. And that lower cost base opens up opportunities that might not otherwise make sense.
So yes, cost is a part of this, but it also creates new connectivity and opportunity throughout the network. As is often the case at Southwest, this should happened long, long ago.
57 comments on “Southwest Redeyes are About More Than Just Utilization”
To me this really highlights Southwest’s comparative weakness in the Northeast. To be clear, I’m not saying that it SHOULD be focusing on the Northeast (B6, DL, and AA are competing strongly in places like BOS, with UA in the mix for the NYC metro area, so the Northeast isn’t likely to be the best place for WN to expand), but the absence of redeyes to points northeast of BWI is very notable. As Cranky noted, flying WN on the East Coast one is often forced to connect through BWI or (much less often) BNA or ATL; WN doesn’t offer as many north/south nonstops as several other airlines.
I assume that overtime WN will experiment with redeyes to the Northeast and to international markets, and will “see what sticks”. Should be fun to watch.
BWI is my home airport so more options are always welcome. Is there any doubt left that WN has hubs? Along with controlling over 70% of traffic here they are also constructing WN’s first east coast maintenance facility at the airport. Having said that, I wouldn’t be surprised if Providence and / or Manchester and BDL are added to the red eye schedule.
To be clear, I wasn’t trying to knock BWI; I’ve connected through it multiple times on WN and haven’t had any complaints. To your point, WN definitely has hubs (in practice if not in name).
I’ll be a little surprised if Manchester is added to the red eye schedule soon, just because it’s a shadow of its former self for WN, which has focused more on BOS than MHT in recent years (other airlines have also focused more on BOS, which I would argue has created the opportunity for airlines like Avelo to pursue service at smaller airports like MHT, PSM, & others). WN flies to 4 destinations from MHT vs 8 from BOS and close to a dozen from PVD.
MCI (Kansas City) was also notably absent from the red eye flights, though given the strong NIMBY/anti-airport crowd in that area I wouldn’t be surprised if the locals fought hard against any proposed WN redeyes.
*correction: Avelo in MHT, Breeze in PSM, etc.
I doubt it. MCI is nearly in SW Iowa/SE Nebraska, surrounded by agricultural fields. I doubt the cows and crops would complain about redeye flights landing in the early morning. I wonder if it’s just enough west that red eyes would land with a longer than optimal layover time for a connecting flight?
It’s news to a lot of folk if Kansas City has an anti-airport crowd — just the opposite. They just spent over a billion dollars (that’s a lot, Kilroy) in a new terminal. There are cargo flights coming and going all night. Late night arrivals and early departures are already happening.
The main point this airport is red-eye lacking is that it is half-way to everywhere (might want to check a map, Kilroy) so a red-eye is not really needed.
You were pretty spot on till your last sentence. MCI has no curfew prohibiting flights at any time of day and airlines don’t engage communities with schedule proposals. Also, every city has an anti-airport NIMBY crowd.
Every airline has to min/max the route network they have, not the one they want.
I dont want to fly redeyes. I wish Southwest’s website + date picker would give you a checkbox that allowed for “no redeyes (anything departing between 11pm and 4am, let’s say)” and “no double connections” .
That would be great for those times when you see a low fare to somewhere, but it is either a redeye or a double connection (often with a redeye involved).
Southwest flights are on Google Flights now, and Google Flights has that filter.
Slight typo, you wrote Denver is east of Baltimore… obviously you meant west.
I don’t see it as an error. I think he meant the eastmost part of the West Coast..
More connectivity makes sense however SWA has all those west coast & DEN red-eyes arriving around 5 a.m. and yet BOS, MHT, PVD, BDL, ALB, BUF, ROC, and ISP connections at BWI leave around 6:50 a.m. Connections from BWI-RDU, RIC, CLT, PIT, CLE, and DTW much later. Wow. On paper no reason first batch of obvious connections should head north around 6 a.m. The southern and western connections could be scheduled around 7:15 a.m. after the northern cities first flight of the day arrives in BWI around 6:30 a.m. (For example: L-BUF 5:15 a.m. arr BWI 6:30 a.m.). If they continue with such long connections after overnight flights–they are still seeding the market place to the big three. Thank you for an excellent article.
That’s a good point, 2+ hour layovers after a redeye are brutal.
“As you can see on the map, the biggest city on the East Coast is Baltimore. It has redeyes from 12 different cities as far east as Denver.”
SEAN – That’s correct, it is the easternmost city with a redeye origin point.
Thanks Cranky, I misinterpreted what you wrote there. Dam screen reader.
Not flying redeyes meant (or currently means) that WN flew alot of very early first flights and had many very late last flights which probably were some of their weakest flights from a performance standpoint. By flying redeyes, WN can eliminate some of those flights in favor of a redeye. Even though redeyes are usually not the strongest flights in a market from a revenue standpoint, they are better than very early departures or very late arrivals.
Because WN has so many mid-continent hubs, they will have alot of “pink eyes” which means departures just before midnight or arrivals before 6 am.
finally, increasing the number of long domestic flights makes better use of the 738s and MAX8s which do not do well on high frequency short routes but will help to pump more traffic onto first flights in WN focus cities.
The speed with which WN will add focus cities is amazing and I will bet they will have one of the biggest impacts on improving WN’s financials as they couple redeyes w/ other schedule improvements during the peak summer season.
This is very anecdotal, but based on my experience those very early morning flights were always packed. In fact, I would think it was a preferred alternative to a red eye (when it works for the customer’s schedule).
The very early morning flights were also a deciding factor for me choosing Southwest over American @ PHX. Often times AA’s first flights of the day were later in the morning to accommodate connecting flight traffic while WN’s first flights were several hours earlier.
if you look at pricing on those flights compared to flights later in the day, the very early departures and late night arrivals are often lower priced…however, other legacy carriers including AA and DL have first flights between 5 and 5.30 to their biggest hubs. There is a segment of the population that likes very early first flights and they do allow midday arrivals even w/ a connection in ATL, DFW, CLT etc
I suspect the biggest change in schedules will be getting rid of a late day departure – such as a medium haul after 8 pm or short haul after 10 pm- and using that airplane for a redeye
WN will undoubtedly be doing lots of schedule changes trying to figure out their network w/ redeyes
I’ve noticed that as well when I chose flights to go to Las Vegas. The early flights were the cheap
No one wants to get up early after a night in Vegas, apparently.
You don’t have to get up early if you stay up all night ;)
“Pink eyes” is a new one for me, Tim; especially given the health implication… always heard them called “moonlight” flights at the airline I previously worked at
Interesting that there are not any red eyes to love field.
From the west coast to love field is too short of a flight for red eyes.
Except American has more than a dozen of them to DFW.
John g – I don’t know about more than a dozen, but these brutal redeyes exist at least on some days this month from Ontario, LAX, Fresno, Sacramento, SFO, Vegas, Portland, Reno, and Seattle. On peak Thanksgiving days they even do brutal Phoenix flights. Still, those are awful redeyes, and I’m sure it isn’t at the top of the list for Southwest to run those.
Love Field gates are full, and it is a delicate dance to schedule already.
I’m not sure the redeyes add any value.
That’s about 12, as some have multiple redeyes. Of course, all these tie into the early back of connections at DFW, and they have over nights from Asia and Sout America also.
I think I answered my own question, it’s for connections, and it doesn’t work as well at Love.
Why awful? I love the 1159pm FAT to DFW option. Ok maybe “love” is too much, but I don’t find them awful at all. After work, I get stuff done, take a nap, shower, and still have plenty of time to get to airport. Take another nap-ish on the flight and on my connection and I’m good to go without wasting a day on travel.
Hov – I hate all redeyes, can’t sleep on airplanes. But this is a particularly short one. If I take a redeye, that next day is completely wasted. So I’d rather fly during the day and be able to work onboard.
This could possibly change with the Max 7? I believe you can do HNL – DAL with the added range?
SYFlier – Maybe, not sure, but for Hawai?i, Southwest has primarily talked about Phoenix and Vegas afternoon departures and Orange County flights.
Maybe that stretches to Dallas eventually, and it would certainly be a redeye, I’d think.
West Coast to HOU isn’t much farther than West Coast to DAL, however, and there are several WN redeyes to HOU (though SEA-HOU is actually a reasonable distance for a redeye, at 1,894 miles + a 2 hour time difference).
I imagine that WN will try redeyes touching DAL and MCI (if the locals there will let WN do such flights) in the future. Plenty more opportunities to try in the future.
Why do people keep talking about the locals “allowing” airlines to fly redeyes? The community has no say in it if the airport does not have a curfew. Network Planners don’t go before city council asking permission to fly redeyes.
If I’m not mistaken DAL has a Curfew restrictions that prohibit Scheduled airline operations between 02:00-07:00 for Arrivals and 02:00-06:00 for Departures. So DAL this most likely never see any Red eye arrivals from WN. HOU works because it feeds the international flights and early morning inter Texas flights.
Cranky, On the map it looks like Nashville will be getting a red eye flight from HNL. Is that correct?
Not without air-air refueling from a KC-135 out of PHX.
Lea Lane – Nope, that’s SFO, Seattle, LAX, and Vegas. I’m guessing it’s the line through Vegas that makes it look like a nonstop.
Hopefully these redeyes won’t get rid of _too_ many 2-hour flights leaving 10-11pm. I quite like DEN-AUS/STL-AUS late departures as AUS is home and those airports are quiet at 9pm or later so you can get a full day wherever, head to the airport, show up an hour before (okay, maybe an hour and 15 for DEN), and easily make the flight. But those flights do sell at a discount vs. more standard times, so maybe a redeye is a better use of a plane.
Though count me among folks who will avoid a redeye almost universally if we’re talking about something <= 6 hours.
Another operational consideration is that WN has almost 800 aircraft and most airports are very tight on RON parking. Adding redeyes kills two birds with one stone when airports all over the country are hanging a NO VACANCY sign for stashing RONs.
I didn’t realize most airports were tight on RON parking. That seems like something that could be rectified fairly easily but ICBW. Would be an interesting topic to learn more about
OAK has seen slight reduction in WN service lately. They even lost OAK-KOA service in the summer schedule even though OAK was once WN main California Hawaii gateway. They also lost its long standing OAK-RNO connection. So it’s not surprising to see them left out of the Red eye additions. Although the political and Airport leadership keep trying to sweep the drastic increase in Crime around the roadway leading into the airport. It’s a HUGE problem since they lost all their spots franchises. People are avoiding OAK as a Bay Area alternative because of the crime. OAK can try and remarket itself as “San Francisco Bay airport all it wants but those who previously frequented the airport are now in avoidance.
So if they can survice the reduction of revenues when that Baggage fee & Seat fee is started in 2025
they will then be ripe for a hostile takeover / merger / bk / etc in 2026 !!
“Every decent-sized city on the West Coast has a redeye to BWI with the strange exception of Oakland”: Do you not consider Burbank and Orange County to be decent-sized? Or are there other factors that limit the ability to operate red-eyes? Both airports have nighttime curfews, but so does Long Beach.
Neither airport has much in the way of transcon flying during the day from Southwest either. Southwest is mostly doing short haul and mid-continent flights from them, which don’t lend themselves to redeye flights as they’re not terribly long, resulting in very late departures or very early arrivals. SNA in particular has a rather short runway limiting the ability of less powerful airplanes to get out of there on a full take of fuel; Aloha and Continental/United have done Hawaii with the 737-700 but that was setting off the noise detectors, the 757 is better for the longer flights out of SNA. LGB on the other hand has plenty of runway; Douglas used to build DC-8s, DC-10s, and MD-11s there.
Ron – Meh. Orange County just is a non-starter. There is such a strict passenger cap that Southwest has had to cut back over the last few years.
There’s no way it wants to waste its precious passenger numbers on a BWI redeye. And Burbank, probably not enough demand to bother. I also wonder what aircraft capability is from there. I can’t recall an airline using a 737 to head to the east coast.
SNA still has yearly saved slots and saved seat allocations in its incentives program for any airlines that wants to offer international or Hawaii service from the airport.
It’s be longed talked about WN eventually adding SNA-Hawaii service with the addition of the MAX7 ETOPS. With the addition of red eyes it been long speculation that WN would offer 2 daily Hawaii flights. They would offer SNA-OGG/KOA 4/3 split and SNA-HNL/LIH 5/2 split.
Aircraft rotation would be 2 daily Red eyes arriving from Hawaii into SNA at 08:45 the 2 aircraft would sit for 75 minutes and each Do a international Turn SJD/PVR the another 75 min turn and back to Hawaii around 5 or 6 PM at night. The question is how would this affect the LGB-HNL service. Would they abandon the market since they probably would benefit from a higher price point from SNA since they wouldn’t have any competition.
Are you a Southwest network planner, or just completely making things up/spreading rumors?
Nope not a network planner.
Hawaii and even adding BWI from SNA with the addition MAX7 has long been discussed around the WN enchantment.
A lot of this discussion was well before JetBlue made its Covid decision to abandon LGB which opened the door for WN to grab all the available slots.
The original discussion in regards to Hawaii and BWI WN would have operated just Day time flights to both.
But with the new addition of Red Eye flying and better aircraft Utilisation thanks to the new Flight keys NOC software that finally eliminated the 0300 daily Herb reboot. Other Aviation Geeks. Also think WN could take a page from Aloha Airlines old playbook when they proposed flying to 2 daily SNA-BWI flights with thru service to OGG and HNL when slots were up for grabs afrom the mega mergers .
AQ proposal was HNL-SNA-red eye-BWI
BWI-SNA-HNL .
And. OGG -Red eye- SNA -BWI-SNA-OGG .
All operated by their 737-700 ETOPS.
But they got denied the Slots in lottery and ended up going bankrupt a year later.
SNA for many years was WN highest Yielding station per flight in their entire system. WN had the unfortunate effect of not being able to grab any excess capacity slots at SNA thanks to a lot of new entrants also jockeying for seat allocations so WN been forced down to the maximum capacity of 41 permanent seats allocated slots . Of their 45 total slots they hold 4 international slots for SJD/PVR which consists of one international slots and one domestic slots that any US airline receives to allow for aircraft and crew repositioning.
Again will WN add these proposed flights to SNA given their new LGB investment which is more of a Backfill for SNA since they lost so many excess capacity slots over the last 10 years. Only Andew Watterson would know that answer. The LGB addition to WN was his Baby originally so who knows. Never say never.
No I’m not a Network planner at Southwest but I did stay an a Holiday Inn Express once.
I would be shocked if they put a redeye in the Hawai?i – SNA market. The west coast has a strong preference for morning westbound and afternoon returns. You don’t build SNA to optimize connections. That’s what Vegas and Phoenix are for.
I’m surprised at the lack of redeyes scheduled to ATL as a last ditch effort to fix the underperformance there. Seems like an obvious way to help with load factors for morning departures to key business markets
How big of a problem is overflying for potential BWI connectivity, especially on these redeyes? Or are the likely consumers of these connections not going to notice backtracking to CLE, PIT, etc.(not to mention the awful 2+ hour times on the ground at BWI as pointed out by another commenter which seems to be an even bigger problem to this observer).
It seems like they’ve thrown a dozen redeyes into BWI but not done much, if anything, to optimize them.
Bill – there are a ton of morning originators that have less than 1.5 hour connections, including Manchester, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, RDU, Atlanta, Tampa, Providence, Orlando, Buffalo, Hartford, and Albany. That’s plenty.
Makes sense. Should have done my own research lol. Interesting insight as always but I also hope to never be on one of those flights!
CF- A lot of those markets don’t seem like intentional connections for a BWI redeye. Can’t imagine going all the way to BWI to connect to FL or ATL, especially when there are so many existing nonstop options from the west coast. A truly optimized connecting bank would include hard to reach destinations where BWI is geographically advantaged: ALB, PVD, MHT, BDL, ORF, RIC, PWM, ISP, maybe GSP, SAV, CHS, MYR.
Just a comment on Red Eye flying:
If the number of jets is static, either WN will need to hire additional Pilots, FAs and ground crew, to handle the additional work hours
– or-
Roll back on the number of daytime flights to prevent from hitting monthly max hours as per union contacts
-or –
Pay lots of overtime, including gate agents, pilots, FAs, dispatchers, etc.
I’m sure WN has calculated a happy medium for the above, but the red eye service moves them into traditional trunk line, legacy status considering assigned seating is just around the corner. Maybe they could offer something more than pretzels ?.