- Southwest Airlines will add three new destinations to its route map in 2021.
- Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Bellingham, Washington; and Eugene, Oregon, will see new flights.
- Routes from each airport are still unknown, but the first flight is scheduled to start by summer.
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Southwest Airlines planned on Monday to serve three new destinations across the US later this year.
The cheap carrier will soon be serving Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Bellingham, Washington; and Eugene, Oregon in yet another expansion of the pandemic era following the addition of Bozeman, Montana and Destin, Florida, announced last month.
Myrtle Beach will be the first city to see new flights, and CEO Gary Kelly said in a statement that the destination wants to serve especially summer travelers and golfers. Golf bags count as one of the two complimentary bags that Southwest kites can check, with the airline saying “golf bags fly free” as a play on one of its classic slogans, “bags fly free”.
The coastal city of Carolina contributes to the existing chain of destinations on the southeast Atlantic coastline. Savannah, Georgia and Miami were added to Southwest’s network in 2020, and the addition of Myrtle Beach provides coverage at almost every major airport on the Atlantic coast from South Carolina to South Florida.
Bellingham, closer to Vancouver, Canada than Seattle, will flee in the second half of 2021 as it serves a cross-border market. Canadians regularly travel across the U.S. border to catch flights to save on the taxes the U.S. and Canadian governments levy on international flights.
“After the reopening of the Canadian border, we expect the valuable travelers already traveling to this alternative airport to return to escape high fares and taxes – and this is very typical of Southwest destinations,” Kelly said.
The border between the US and Canada is currently closed for non-essential travel, a policy of the pandemic era approaching its one-year anniversary, but it could be reopened by the time Suidwes begins service. US and Canadian officials are renewing their policies on a monthly basis and the accelerated explosion of vaccines in the US could encourage the reopening of talks.
Suidwes joins the hometown airline Alaska Airlines and the ultra-cheap airline Allegiant Air in Washington, which serves Bellingham.
Eugene will be only Southwest’s second destination in Beaver State behind Portland, surrounded by national forests and within driving distance of Oregon’s Pacific Coast and Crater Lake National Park. Southwest will not be alone in the city, as American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Alaska and Allegiant Eugene serve cities in the US.
Flights to Eugene are also planned for the second half of 2021.
Routes to any of the new cities have not yet been announced, but Suidwes will probably provide service to nearby bases that provide connections across the country. For Bellingham and Eugene, this probably means flights to Denver, Dallas, Las Vegas or Phoenix, while Myrtle Beach may serve Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, or Nashville, Tennessee.
All routes are flown with the Boeing 737 aircraft of the airline and will likely see the Boeing 737 Max. Southwest plans to fly again with the Max on March 11, the last airline in the U.S. to do so behind American Airlines, United Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
Two existing destinations – Steamboat Springs and Telluride in Colorado – will also extend their seasonal flights through the summer.