If it was not already apparent, right this moment’s Southwest Airways just isn’t your mother and father’ Southwest.
Simply days after CEO Bob Jordan spoke of the potential for long-haul worldwide locations — suppose Europe, not Kansas — the airline made its first displaying on the annual assembly of the worldwide aviation commerce group Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation in New Delhi. The assembly is a who’s who of senior aviation management the place offers get carried out.
Steven Swan, the managing director of worldwide at Southwest, acknowledged this throughout a sit-down in New Delhi.
“It is a massive change for us,” he mentioned.
Southwest first flew exterior the U.S. in 2014 — AirTran Airways operated worldwide flights as a Southwest subsidiary previous to that — schedule information from aviation analytics agency Cirium reveals. However ever since then, the airline has been higher recognized for its home breadth than international attain.
“We perceive our prospects wish to go locations exterior of the nation as nicely, and we wish to have the ability to present them with that chance,” mentioned Swan.
Simply displaying up in New Delhi is an emblem, at the least to the airline trade, of Southwest’s internationalization.
And the potential for long-haul flights comes throughout a interval of dramatic change for the airline. Baggage stopped flying free final week. Additional-legroom seats go on sale in October. And open seating ends early subsequent yr. After which there’s the potential for Southwest lounges, and even top notch, sooner or later.
New locations overseas are coming
Southwest has not added a brand new worldwide vacation spot since Cozumel Worldwide Airport (CZM) in 2020, Cirium schedules present. That is to not say it has not grown; the airline added 17 new U.S. locations starting from Miami Worldwide Airport (MIA) to Yampa Valley Regional Airport (HDN) close to Steamboat Springs within the Colorado mountains through the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Home development has slowed dramatically — the airline exited 4 cities, together with Cozumel, in 2024 — and Southwest is “transitioning again,” as Swan put it, to increasing its worldwide map.
Swan was diplomatic on the place the service might go, paraphrasing former CEO Gary Kelly’s oft-repeated line about Southwest having 50 or so worldwide locations it might serve.
He did say that Southwest’s subsequent few worldwide additions would comply with the sample of the cities it already serves. That’s: leisure-heavy locations within the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America that cater to American vacationers.
After these cities come on-line, nevertheless, the sky is the restrict — or at the least the vary of one in all Southwest’s Boeing 737 MAX planes.
“We consider its first forays into long-haul worldwide service might contain connecting into Reykjavík, which is in vary for its [737] MAX 8s,” wrote Tom Fitzgerald, an airline analyst at TD Cowen, in a report Could 31. He cited Southwest’s present partnership with Icelandair and famous that the European service might “drive co-brand bank card spending by Fast Rewards members.”
Requested to touch upon Fitzgerald’s report, Swan mentioned, “Something that’s throughout the MAX vary is interesting to us so as to add to the community.”
He added that Icelandair, which Southwest started connecting with at Baltimore/Washington Worldwide Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) in January, does a “incredible job.”
Fast Rewards partnerships are within the works
One massive piece lacking from Southwest’s Icelandair partnership is loyalty. Presently, it solely connects vacationers and checked baggage with the European service’s flights at six U.S. airports.
Including Fast Rewards factors accrual and redemption, and possibly even loyalty advantages, has the potential to make any worldwide tie-up a lot richer for each Southwest and its accomplice.
Southwest is working towards offering prospects “the aptitude to make use of their Fast Reward factors to journey wherever they wish to go — if that is in Asia, or that is in Europe, or that is in Africa,” mentioned Swan.
The IT techniques wanted to energy loyalty tie-ups, codeshares or extra are, as with so many issues expertise at Southwest, within the works, he defined.
Within the meantime, vacationers can look ahead to China Airways becoming a member of Icelandair as a Southwest accomplice in 2026. The tie-up with the Taiwanese service will look a lot the identical: Vacationers can guide flights on each airways throughout a single itinerary and the airways will switch checked baggage. Loyalty advantages and anything are to come back.
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