Southwest launches fare sale for post-Wright flights at Love Field

Southwest Airlines on Monday unveiled its flight plans for Love Field after the Wright Amendment ends in October, offering $99 one-way fares on nonstop flights to cities like New York and Los Angeles for flights booked this week.

“The ability to now fly nonstop on Southwest Airlines out of Love Field and to do it at great prices is really huge for Southwest and the city of Dallas,” said Kevin Krone, Southwest’s chief marketing officer. When completed, the new schedule will give Southwest 149 daily flights at the airport.

The Dallas-based carrier announced earlier that it would add 15 destinations when the Wright Amendment’s limits on long-haul flights end Oct. 13. For decades, Southwest has been limited to flying nonstop flights from Love Field to a handful of nearby states as part of an agreement dating to the origins of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.

The carrier said it won’t drop any existing destinations but will reduce its frequency to several cities, including Austin, Houston, Kansas City and six others, to make room for the additions.

The fare sale, launched on Southwest’s website, includes flights from Love Field to Baltimore/Washington; Chicago Midway; Denver; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Orlando, Fla.; and Washington Reagan National airports starting Oct. 13. The carrier also added daily flights from Love Field to Atlanta; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Nashville; New York LaGuardia; Phoenix; San Diego; Orange County, Calif.; and Tampa Bay, Fla., beginning Nov. 2.

The promotional fares will be available until midnight Friday for travel through Dec. 17, except for Fridays, Sundays and all of Thanksgiving week. Some fares are $79, matching Virgin America’s promotional sale announced two weeks ago when the San Francisco-based carrier said it would add flights at Dallas Love Field. The Dallas city manager signed off on a deal last week for Virgin to take control of two gates at Love Field from American Airlines.

Industry analyst Rick Seaney said Southwest’s promotion has pushed fares lower than he anticipated and he expects that the airline may have several other fare sales leading up to the October repeal of the Wright Amendment.

“The real everyday prices are better than I expected with more inventory than I expected,” said Seaney, founder of Farecompare.com. “It’s clear that Southwest doesn’t want to leave any of this pent-up demand without a seat.”

Seaney said he found fares around Thanksgiving week that were not part of the fare sale but cost only $20 or $30 more than the promotional prices. He added that American Airlines is matching some of the fares for flights out of DFW airport.

Southwest also unveiled its new Southwest Porch at Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, which offers free Wi-Fi and lounge seating at the urban park, built over Woodall Rogers Freeway in downtown Dallas.

It’s the third porch Southwest has built, after facilities in New York and Atlanta. The carrier did not say how much the porch cost.

Read more here: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/sky_talk/2014/05/southwest-launches-fare-sale-for-post-wright-flights-at-love-field.html#storylink=cpy

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Virgin America has begun offering $79 one-way fare sales out of Love Field

This fall we will see big changes at Dallas Love Field.

On Oct. 13, the Wright Amendment restrictions on nonstop flights between Love Field and cities in the continental U.S. will end. The party is already getting started.

Last week Virgin America offered a three-day fare sale out of Love Field, with tickets as low as $79 each way, for flights to Los Angeles, New York LaGuardia, San Francisco and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

In March, we thought the party would be twofold, with Southwest launching sales and other airlines matching, but Virgin America came in first with these deals. It has been a long time since we’ve seen an airline the quality of Virgin America offering $79 one-way fares.

Virgin America launched the sale after announcing that it had reached an agreement with American to take over two gates that American has to give up as part of its merger with US Airways. The Department of Justice has approved the transfer to Virgin America, and now we are awaiting word from the city of Dallas, so it’s not a done deal yet.

Virgin America plans to offer three flights a day between Dallas and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and four to New York LaGuardia. The airline is hoping to get approved for another gate in Chicago in the next few weeks. If it wins a gate, it is likely to add Dallas-Chicago service, but that wouldn’t start until sometime in 2015.

One airline we’ve been overlooking is United.

United has been flying smaller airplanes, offering six daily flights to Houston from its two gates at Love, but once the Wright Amendment restrictions end, United may change its strategy.

Since Virgin America is planning to offer double the number of flights that United currently offers, we could see United double its nonstop routes since the airline has the same number of gates. The airline may offer flights to hubs like Newark, Denver and Chicago, which could lead to more competition. I’m sure United has something on the drawing board that will take it past just serving Houston’s Bush Intercontinental.

Local airport codes

We know to go to Southwest.com to find Southwest fares, but one issue that Virgin America must handle is making sure that consumers know to enter airport code DAL when looking for flights into and out of Love Field. Unlike Southwest, Virgin is on regular booking sites, but many people don’t understand that if you enter DFW as your airport, you’ll only get fares for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport flights.

In other cities with multiple airports, you can enter the city name when looking for flights and the booking engine will pull up flights to all of the airports. For example, you can use the code NYC for New York and you will see flights to LaGuardia, JFK and Newark. We don’t have an airport code in Dallas that will show both airports, so you have to enter DFW and DAL separately to see the flights and fares.

Watching Southwest fares

Airlines like to start selling seats at least five or six months before starting new nonstop routes. I expect to see Southwest come out with introductory fares in May or June on new nonstop routes out of Love Field for flights starting on Oct. 13.

When you start selling fares on new routes at $79 one-way, what’s the next sale going to be? We could see another $79 sale, but even if it’s $89 or $99 one-way, it’s still an excellent buy. One way to get people to look for Love Field flights is to offer great sale fares. We expect to see fierce airfare sales on new routes offered by Southwest and Virgin America, and I think it will spread to D/FW to be competitive.

While most summer airfares look ugly, the late summer and fall fares are starting to look promising for travel starting Aug. 25 up until Thanksgiving, and that’s good news for consumers.

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