During the pandemic, Southwest had a plan. It thought it could reliably serve the primary airport in cities where it already had a massive presence at a secondary airport. It started up Chicago/O’Hare and restarted Houston/IAH to complement the Midway and Hobby hubs respectively. IAH went away back in 2024, but O’Hare soldiered on… until now. Service to O’Hare and longer-lived Washington/Dulles ends in early June 2026.
For O’Hare, there are multiple storylines here. And in fact, this seems like a good time to introduce the long-requested name for our favorite new soap opera:
This week on Beyond ORD Gates, Southwest decided it just absolutely was not worth continuing to compete. But then again, it never really found a niche that made sense at O’Hare anyway.
Southwest Monthly Departures From Chicago/O’Hare
Data via Cirium
When Southwest first started in the market, the focus was on connecting O’Hare to its biggest hubs in blue. It then grew into hybrid markets like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Orlando which are both hubs and major leisure destinations. Pure leisure was icing on the cake.
By early 2024, Southwest had given up on this plan. It nearly eliminated pure leisure flying and it scaled back its flying everywhere else to just a little over half where it was.
This last winter, we saw another shift. Yes, flights were cut again, but leisure returned. The pure hubs all but disappeared. For spring, Southwest tried to reintroduce more leisure, but it seems clear the airline just decided it wasn’t worth it any longer. With United and American ramping up capacity dramatically at O’Hare, that must have been the final straw. Southwest will now donate its two dozen daily operations to the pot as the FAA tries to reduce flying at O’Hare this summer.
Meanwhile, at Dulles, it’s a different story. Southwest has served that airport since 2006, and it opened it like it did just about any other new station back in the day, by connecting it with regular flights to the nearest hubs.
Southwest Monthly Departures From Washington/Dulles
Data via Cirium
Florida survived until 2010 when Denver took over as the second connecting point at the airport beyond Midway. By 2016, even Midway was gone, replaced by Atlanta as Florida again returned. Then Midway came back and Atlanta was gone. It never really worked.
For the last two years, Dulles has been a key point in the strategy to serve flights that are beyond the perimeter from nearby Washington/National. But that has meant only flights to Phoenix and Denver. (Remember, Southwest has a beyond-perimeter slot exemption to serve Las Vegas from National already.)
This is a much smaller operation than what was at O’Hare, and it’s probably not a big deal to see it finally go away. But it is indicative of this idea that primary airports in markets where Southwest has a big hub at the secondary airport won’t really work.
Yes, Washington/National still exists in the shadow of Baltimore, but that is a special case. Slots make airlines do crazy things, but also… it’s a great airport to serve if you want to get in good with the politicians. It’s no surprise to see this remain important in the network.
Other than that, the closest we have to this dynamic is in the LA Basin and the San Francisco Bay Area. I don’t count Fort Lauderdale and Miami since neither are large operations any longer. The same goes for Boston vs Manchester/Providence and Islip vs LaGuardia. That’s not the same thing.
But even in LA and SF, it’s a different kind of story. In full year 2025, BWI had 81 percent of all Southwest departures from the region. (If you’re wondering, National had 17 percent and Dulles was a rounding error.) In Chicago, Midway had 94 percent of departures. These are massive hub operations for the airline with around 200 daily departures on average (a little less at Midway).
In the LA Basin, LAX is actually the largest station with 29 percent of departures, but it’s all fairly even followed by Burbank at 22 percent, Long Beach and Orange County hovering around 18 percent, and Ontario at 14 percent. LA also has less than 70 daily departures. The Bay Area is similar with Oakland at 47 percent, San Jose at 41 percent, and the balance at San Francisco.
In these markets, especially LA, it’s about providing good, useful service across the entire region. There isn’t that massive draw to take away from from the primary airport in the same way as there is in DC, Chicago, and yes, Houston.
So another Southwest experiment ends as the airline continues to refocus on markets that work. It’s not a surprise to see these two on the outs. The only real surprise is that Southwest was willing to make the right move and walk away.
