Southwest is Adding a Fourth Hawaii Gateway

Despite all of the doom and gloom this year, Southwest isn’t giving up on its Hawaii ambitions. In fact, Southwest is adding a fourth Hawaii gateway out of California in the near future.

Revised June Schedule

Before we talk about the new Hawaii route, let’s talk about Southwest’s overall schedule. According to Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s EVP and CCO, the airline will reduce its June 6 to 27 schedule by about 50%. Originally, the Airline intended to fly around 4,000 flights per day. But now it will fly only around 2,000. What’s more, the 4,000 daily flights already represents a reduction – one caused by the grounding of its Boeing 737 MAX fleet.

That said, while Southwest is flying around 50% less, they’re still maintaining service to all of its domestic cities. Further, the Airline claims it’s able to maintain 80% of the itineraries it had in its original schedule.

As far as international flying goes, we’ll see a slow reintroduction of those routes. Beginning on May 21, Southwest intends to restart service between Houston Hobby and both Cancun and San Jose del Cabo/Los Cabos, as well as between Baltimore/Washington and Montego Bay. On June 7, both of those Mexican destinations get reconnected to Denver, while Cancun gets reconnected to Baltimore/Washington. Also recommencing on June 7 are Baltimore/Washington and Nassau, Bahamas; Orlando and Montego Bay, Jamaica; and, Tampa and Havana, Cuba.

Hawaii’s Fourth Gateway

Prior to connecting Hawaii to a new city, Southwest intends to restart service between Maui and Oakland on May 21, while they already reinstated twice-daily service between Oakland and Honolulu. These actions also allows Southwest to rebuild its inter-island service too.

As for the fourth Hawaii gateway, Southwest intends to launch its all-new San Diego – Honolulu service on June 7. Further, that same day, service will restart between Honolulu and both Sacramento and San Diego too.