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Southwest And Their Lack Of Red-Eye Flights

BigBert10
Explorer C

Hello, Southwest Airlines Community,

 

I just want to talk about Southwest Airlines and their lack of red-eye flights. If you don't know what a red-eye flight is, it is basically a flight that departs from the west heading east. It departs at night from the west and lands in the early morning in the east.

 

Almost all major airlines in the US operate red-eye flights, but not Southwest.

 

Here is how that can be a problem, especially for Southwest travelers from the west coast and Hawaii.

 

International Travel: Many travelers, myself included, love to travel to different countries in the Caribbean. Southwest Airlines has international service to the Caribbean but that is just mainly from the east coast. I live all the way over near Norman Y Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC/KSJC) and will soon move up to near Portland International Airport (PDX/KPDX). Due to the lack of red-eye flights from Southwest, it is basically impossible for those on the west coast of the United States to travel internationally from Southwest unless we travel to places like BWI, FLL, and HOU and spend the night there.

 

Ever since I started flying Southwest in June of 2018, I have not stopped flying on the airline. It is a fantastic airline and I want to experience Southwest Airlines and their international service to the Caribbean, but as of right now, it is not possible unless we spend the night over on the east coast.

 

Hawaii: Southwest has recently started service to the Hawaiian islands. Flights to Hawaii could take at least 5-6 hours. Flights from Hawaii could take 4-5 hours. Why not utilize that time to have a red-eye flight from Hawaii to places like OAK and SJC? It allows for earlier connections to more destinations rather than arriving in California later in the evening or night.

 

Let me know what you think and if Southwest should add red-eye flights in the future.

2 REPLIES 2

Re: Southwest And Their Lack Of Red-Eye Flights

chgoflyer
Aviator A
Solution

@BigBert10 wrote:

Hello, Southwest Airlines Community,

 

I just want to talk about Southwest Airlines and their lack of red-eye flights. If you don't know what a red-eye flight is, it is basically a flight that departs from the west heading east. It departs at night from the west and lands in the early morning in the east.

 

Almost all major airlines in the US operate red-eye flights, but not Southwest.

 

Here is how that can be a problem, especially for Southwest travelers from the west coast and Hawaii.

 

International Travel: Many travelers, myself included, love to travel to different countries in the Caribbean. Southwest Airlines has international service to the Caribbean but that is just mainly from the east coast. I live all the way over near Norman Y Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC/KSJC) and will soon move up to near Portland International Airport (PDX/KPDX). Due to the lack of red-eye flights from Southwest, it is basically impossible for those on the west coast of the United States to travel internationally from Southwest unless we travel to places like BWI, FLL, and HOU and spend the night there.

 

Ever since I started flying Southwest in June of 2018, I have not stopped flying on the airline. It is a fantastic airline and I want to experience Southwest Airlines and their international service to the Caribbean, but as of right now, it is not possible unless we spend the night over on the east coast.

 

Hawaii: Southwest has recently started service to the Hawaiian islands. Flights to Hawaii could take at least 5-6 hours. Flights from Hawaii could take 4-5 hours. Why not utilize that time to have a red-eye flight from Hawaii to places like OAK and SJC? It allows for earlier connections to more destinations rather than arriving in California later in the evening or night.

 

Let me know what you think and if Southwest should add red-eye flights in the future.


 

Prior to Southwest's reservation systems shift in 2017 from Sabre to Amadeus, it was said that the previous, antiquated system didn't allow red eyes. While Southwest is still in the process of working out some bugs with the new system, Amadeus does allow flexibility for many things Southwest couldn't do before -- like different flight schedules on different week days, and red eye flights. So those may be coming in the future. I suspect they'll be needed for efficiency, and for to compete with the legacy carriers on routes like the ones you mentioned.

 

Among the other features Amadeus offers that Sabre didn't is the ability to charge bag fees. So lets hope Southwest doesn't embrace everything about the new system. 😉

 

This article has some more info: Southwest switch to new reservations system means hello red-eyes goodbye overbooking

 

 

Re: Southwest And Their Lack Of Red-Eye Flights

dfwskier
Aviator A

Good suggestion!

 

Since this is primarily a customer to customer forum, it is probably more appropriate to make the suggestion directly to the airline. Your post might not necessarily be noticed here.You could simply cut and paste your post into an e-mail.

 

To send an e-mail click on "contact us" at the bottom of this page, and then pick e-mail from the contact options on the top left of the ensuing page.

 

For the time being the airline is somewhat constrained on adding new flights due to the Max grounding. 34 planes are out of service and the airline was planning on adding more of them. Until

those planes are in serivce, there won't be a lot of new service added.