Summary
- On May 30, 2024, Southwest has 16 routes with 10 or more daily flights.
- 2% of its routes have at least that many services today.
- With 15 departures, Denver-Phoenix is the leading airport pair.
Southwest is the fourth-largest airline serving the US. On May 30, the day I researched and wrote this article, the carrier had 4,285 non-stop flights and 17% of the country’s short-haul services. Southwest’s activity has risen 5% compared to the same day in the pre-pandemic May 2019, which was also a Thursday.
Given the airline’s former Boeing 737 variant, it is appropriate that it has 733 (!) routes on May 30. When they’re examined, Southwest’s average frequency is triple daily, with such a volume crucial to its targeted passengers, competitiveness, and market share.
Routes with 10 or more daily flights
Analyzing all 733 routes indicates that 16 routes have at least 10 daily departures (each way; double for both ways), as shown on the following map. As you will appreciate, this is based on one specific day; it may differ at other times. The number of flights occasionally varies depending on which end of an airport pair is considered.
Image: GCMap
Southwest is still famed for high-frequency short-haul services. Appropriately, the average stage length of the 16 routes is 497 nautical miles (920 km), helped by its intra-Texas, intra-California, and Las Vegas services. The average is nearly a quarter lower than the carrier’s length across its entire network today (647 nautical miles, 1,197 km).
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It has nothing to do with Southwest, but is nonetheless signifciant.
Southwest’s most-served routes
They are listed below, most of which obviously concern business and transfer passengers. Most routes involve Southwest’s busiest hubs and/or bigger cities, further enabling more flights. Generally speaking, the more flights an airline has, the higher its market share.
- 15 daily flights each way on May 30: Denver-Phoenix
- 13 daily: Las Vegas-Denver
- 12 daily: Dallas Love-Houston Hobby, San Diego-San Jose
- 11 daily: Baltimore-Orlando, Honolulu-Kahului, Las Vegas-Phoenix, Las Vegas-San Diego, Las Vegas-Sacramento, San Diego-Sacramento
- 10 daily: Dallas Love-Phoenix, Las Vegas-Chicago Midway, Las Vegas-Oakland, Las Vegas-Reno, Las Vegas-San Jose, Phoenix-Chicago Midway
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
Denver-Phoenix
Located 523 nautical miles (968 km) apart, Denver-Phoenix links Southwest’s busiest and sixth-busiest airports systemwide, based on May 30 data. Today, it is one of four airlines in the market, with 28 one-way flights. Joining Southwest (15 flights) are Frontier (five), United (five), and American (with a ‘mere’ three flights). Denver-Phoenix is the US’ sixth-busiest airport pair by departures.
Photo: Angel DiBilio | Shutterstock
Southwest’s flights left Colorado for Arizona at 06:05, 07:25, 08:35, 09:25, 10:40, 11:50, 12:45, 14:15, 15:05, 16:10, 17:00, 18:25, 19:15, 20:55, and 21:45; it is a proper shuttle service. When considering the other three airlines, Southwest has the first departure of the day and the last ‘reasonable’ flight (but Frontier beats it overall with a service leaving at the horrendous time of 23:27).
US Department of Transportation T-100 shows Southwest carried about 1.1 million Denver-Phoenix passengers last year, both point-to-point and transit combined. Southwest filled 78% of seats on this route, slightly below the carrier’s average. Only about three in ten passengers connected to another flight, against 54% for its Denver routes generally; it was Southwest’s third most ‘local’ route from the Colorado airport.
What do you make of it all? Let us know in the comments section.