If you wish to be in New Orleans to cheer on the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs or the Philadelphia Eagles within the Tremendous Bowl, Southwest Airways is able to take you there.
The Dallas-based provider simply added 31 new flights for followers touring to look at the 2025 Tremendous Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday, Feb. 9.
The additional flights increase capability between Louis Armstrong New Orleans Worldwide Airport (MSY) and the house airports of the 2 Tremendous Bowl groups: Philadelphia Worldwide Airport (PHL) and Missouri’s Kansas Metropolis Worldwide Airport (MCI).
- Feb. 7: Kansas Metropolis to New Orleans: 7 added flights
- Feb. 7: Philadelphia to New Orleans: 5 added flights
- Feb. 8: Kansas Metropolis to New Orleans: 2 added flights
- Feb. 8: Philadelphia to New Orleans: 1 added flight
- Feb. 10: New Orleans to Kansas Metropolis: 10 added flights
- Feb. 10: New Orleans to Philadelphia: 6 added flights
All the flights are already out there on the market — and whereas they’re costly (one-way fares begin at round $700), they’re certainly cheaper than a seat contained in the Caesars Superdome on recreation day.
Whereas many airways like so as to add particular one-off flights for big-ticket occasions, few are as aggressive with particular schedules for these main occasions as Southwest. (Final 12 months alone, Southwest added 341 further flights, supporting a whopping 61 occasions, such because the Kentucky Derby and faculty soccer video games.)
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Within the days main as much as the Nationwide Soccer League’s convention championship video games, Dan Smith, Southwest’s director of present schedules, advised TPG how Southwest manages so as to add so many particular last-minute flights to its schedule.
“We have been lucky the final six months the place earlier in 2024, we took a really conservative method with our fleet and so we ended up having some airplanes out there to deploy for lots of those large alternatives … faculty soccer video games, NFL video games, Taylor Swift concert events, music festivals, you title it,” Smith mentioned in an unique interview with TPG.
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Having spare airplanes is important to creating last-minute flying work. In any other case, the airline would want to disrupt current flights — and the passengers booked on them — that had already been promoting for months.
Smith, in fact, acknowledges this, so altering frequently scheduled industrial service to accommodate further flying is not an possibility.
“One of many constraints that we have now is we don’t disrupt our current schedule that is already out on the market. So we have now to work round that,” he mentioned.
That mentioned, the Tremendous Bowl is a predictable occasion that occurs yearly, so Southwest “does some proactive measures,” Smith mentioned, to make sure that it could accommodate last-minute flights for followers heading to the massive recreation.
Smith mentioned Southwest all the time has further flights on the market inside a couple of minutes of every championship recreation ending, a transfer meant to make sure that it captures as a lot demand as potential.
To do this, Smith’s crew spent the earlier week constructing contingency schedules of all 4 situations with totally different groups profitable. When every recreation is completed, Southwest deletes the extra flights that may’ve been added for the shedding crew and hits “publish” on the flights that it’s going to really fly.
By doing all this prep, the provider ensures that it is “working across the current schedule in New Orleans, the variety of gates that we have now there and in a single day parking spots. And never only for New Orleans, but in addition the airports the place the flights are coming from,” mentioned Smith.
Naturally, Southwest cannot predict precisely what number of followers (and native media and different events) will journey to the Tremendous Bowl annually, so it’s kind of of a guessing recreation for Smith’s crew to resolve simply what number of flights so as to add.
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Within the case of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, nevertheless, Southwest did faucet into historic information to see “which groups journey nicely, and within the case of the Tremendous Bowl with the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, that is the third 12 months in a row that they’ve an opportunity to go. So we have now a extremely good understanding of the demand and information on what number of flights that we might provide in the event that they have been to make it to the Tremendous Bowl once more,” in response to Smith.
Including further flight sections lower than two weeks earlier than the occasion is a novel second for community planners like Smith. Whereas they may usually be poring over rivals’ schedules to attempt to discover pockets of unmet demand, these last-minute selections are made largely with out accounting for aggressive dynamics.
“We do not know what the opposite airways are planning,” mentioned Smith, who added that he and his crew would possibly take a look at what his rivals are charging for flights to New Orleans throughout Tremendous Bowl week to see if Southwest’s fares and schedules might stimulate demand. (Delta Air Traces, he mentioned, additionally likes so as to add last-minute flights and would probably be thought-about a key competitor on this case.)
For those who e book certainly one of these last-minute flights, do not count on a lot to vary concerning the Southwest expertise. You may nonetheless must line as much as board — assigned seating does not kick in till later this 12 months — and it isn’t just like the planes can be painted in crew colours.
What you would possibly see, nevertheless, are some Easter eggs that present you are flying on a particular flight. One such indicator is the flight quantity — Smith’s crew likes to assign particular flight numbers which have some connection to the Tremendous Bowl.
He cannot all the time do this, nevertheless, if a given quantity is already assigned to a frequently scheduled flight.
“As a lot as we want to use flight quantity 15 on a Kansas Metropolis to New Orleans flight on Friday, sadly, that flight quantity’s already in use,” Smith mentioned, referencing the jersey variety of Kansas Metropolis’s star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. “So we’re not going to vary an current flight to free it up, but when it isn’t in use on Saturday, we’ll apply it to a Saturday flight. We’ll use some numbers of the extra widespread gamers and issues like that. Simply so as to add a enjoyable aspect to it.”
Apart from the Tremendous Bowl and different predictable big-ticket occasions, Smith’s crew of 4 is in control of determining if different occasions would possibly warrant last-minute further flights. One instrument that they use permits them to “principally flag it if there is a market that is reserving up sooner than we might anticipate,” a probable indicator that one thing is happening across the time of the flight.
Typically, nevertheless, Smith’s crew hears about occasions from its airport workers. “Matter of reality, I simply received an e-mail this morning from certainly one of our workers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the place Unhealthy Bunny has a live performance sequence. … In order that’ll be one thing that we’ll add to the checklist to take a look at,” Smith mentioned. (No phrase but if mentioned worker would win free live performance tickets if Southwest finally ends up efficiently including and promoting out flights there.)
As for who Smith was rooting for forward of this 12 months’s convention championship video games, he mentioned it is “truthfully actually a toss-up between Kansas Metropolis and Buffalo. Each of these groups journey extraordinarily nicely. … For Philadelphia and the Commanders, we’re a bit of bit larger within the Baltimore, Washington, D.C., space, so I assume I might lean a bit of bit extra that manner, however you realize, we do nicely in Philadelphia as nicely.”
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