Summary
- Southwest has revealed two significant developments: assigned seating and overnight flights.
- Overnight services are the focus of this article, with five routes seeing them in February 2025.
- More routes will have such flights in March/April.
Mark the date: July 25, 2024. This was when Southwest revealed the end of ‘open’ seating in exchange for assigned seating. The considerable change, to be operational next year, is all about attracting more passengers and benefiting from their additional revenue. Like other carriers, it will also generate extra revenue by enabling passengers to pick particular seats and extra legroom options. Elsewhere, its first overnight flights have been loaded.
Welcome to overnight flights
Southwest has not had red-eye flights in its 53-year history, so it has always been highly unusual in the US sky. Indeed, many other carriers regularly fly overnight, such as American, Alaska Airways, Breeze, Delta, Frontier, Spirit, Sun Country, United, and so on. Southwest will join them in February 2025.
Image: GCMap
While start dates and the specific routes and flights are subject to change, searching Southwest’s website indicates that the following are available to book as of July 25. Unsurprisingly, they’re all longer services to/from some of its major airports that pass various time zones.
- Los Angeles-Baltimore: 21:30-05:20+1 (begins February 13)
- Las Vegas-Baltimore: 22:00-05:30+1 (begins February 13)
- Las Vegas-Orlando: 22:50-06:05+1 (begins February 13)
- Phoenix-Baltimore: 23:05-05:10+1 (begins February 13)
- Los Angeles-Nashville: 23:45-06:00+1 (begins February 13)
Image: Southwest
Why no overnight flights until now?
While Southwest has not had overnight services, it has many departures from 05:00 and many extremely late (or early) arrivals past 01:00. As hard as it might be to appreciate, Southwest couldn’t schedule overnight services until 2017 due to its old reservation system.
Shifting to a much newer system enabled it, but it has taken years to get to this point. While unconfirmed, it is believed that no contractual problems with pilots or cabin crew stood in the way.
Photo: Southwest
Aircraft on the ground at night enable routine maintenance, keeping things simple. However, this means that Southwest might be somewhat missing out on additional revenue opportunities, which the airline is now evidently keen to pursue, undoubtedly because of its new investor, Elliott Investment Management.
It should also enable higher aircraft productivity, a meaningful way to reduce seat-mile costs. Indeed, according to the US Department of Transportation Form 41 for Q1 2024, Southwest’s block hours per aircraft per day averaged 9.82. It fell from 11.08 hours 30 years ago and 10.93 hours 20 years ago and is about the same as a decade ago.
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A few overnight flights won’t make much difference, but they are intriguing. Combined with Southwest’s new seating policy, it suggests a significant change in corporate mindset. What else will be next? Pay-for checked bags? However, that’s an important differentiating factor from other carriers.