It’s a big day for Southwest. Not only has the airline announced plans to introduce assigned and premium seating, but the airline is also adding redeye flights. This is long overdue, and the news coincides with the carrier’s Q2 2024 financial results.
In this post:
Southwest will operate redeyes as of February 2025
In its entire history, Southwest Airlines has never operated a scheduled redeye flight. That seems like a missed opportunity, since it has limited the number of hours per day that Southwest 737s can fly, and planes don’t make money sitting on the ground.
Southwest will finally be evolving in this regard, and will be adding 24-hour operations. As of February 13, 2025, Southwest will operate its first redeye flights. The airline will initially operate the following five routes as redeyes:
- Las Vegas (LAS) to Baltimore (BWI)
- Las Vegas (LAS) to Orlando (MCO)
- Los Angeles (LAX) to Baltimore (BWI)
- Los Angeles (LAX) to Nashville (BNA)
- Phoenix (PHX) to Baltimore (BWI)
Those are just the first several routes, but Southwest plans to phase in additional redeye flights over time, as part of a multi-year transformation to a 24-hour operation. The airline states that this will provide incremental revenue and cost savings, enabling Southwest to fund nearly all new capacity over the next three years without incremental aircraft capital deployment
Why hasn’t Southwest operated redeye flights until now?
It seems preposterous for an airline like Southwest to not offer redeye flights. While most people don’t enjoy taking redeyes, they’re great for aircraft utilization, and people do end up booking them. So why hasn’t the airline flown these kinds of services up until now? Well, it’s kind of a wild story, if you ask me.
Up until 2017, there was a technical limitation that prevented Southwest Airlines from scheduling redeyes. The airline used to have an antiquated reservations system:
- This system didn’t allow Southwest to schedule connecting itineraries involving redeyes
- This system didn’t allow the airline to even fluctuate its schedule on different days of the week
- All Southwest flights had to be scheduled to land by 11PM PT (2AM ET), so that the system could be switched over to the following day
In 2017, Southwest finally transitioned to Amadeus, which is much more capable, and allows the airline to schedule redeyes, among other things.
Even with having transitioned to a new reservations system, the airline still had a major hurdle — its contract with flight crews didn’t allow the airline to schedule redeyes. However, with both pilots and flight attendants at Southwest now having new contracts, these specifically stipulate that the airline can now require them to operate redeye flights.
So Southwest now has both the technology and the contracts to allow redeye flights, which is why we’re finally seeing them.
Bottom line
Southwest Airlines will finally be introducing redeye flights as of February 2025. It’s wild that the airline hasn’t operated these until now, but this initially came down to a technology limitation, and then came down to a contract limitation with flight crews. With both of these issues having been resolved, the airline can now finally operate these flights.
This should help Southwest with aircraft utilization, and is a small step in the right direction for a turnaround at the airline.
What do you make of Southwest finally introducing redeye flights?
I like Open. I'm 75 and don't walk very well. I need early boarding.
Ben,
I’m a longtime reader and love the blog. However, the ads have gotten out of control and are ruining the experience. The latest ones pop back up repeatedly even after you’ve dismissed them, and dismissing them is very difficult because you have to hit exactly the right spot on a tiny X.
Please, please, please change this. It is sucking the otherwise significant joy out of reading your site.
Yours in despair,
John in London
Strongly agree.
So so true. Very irritating. We all know there needs to be advertising revenue but do it without the current interference. The pop up videos are so annoying. The guy isn't interested it seems. Additionally there is too much tabloid content appearing, and ages ago I suggested the bottom line section should be in bullet points. All ignored.
I dont understand where this frustration is coming from because i never see pop up ads on this site. Not a single one. And i dont use blockers of any sort. Maybe the internet just figured i'm not worth trying to sell anything to...
That’s my experience, too. They come back even after being dismissed.
I don't see these and I'm in the UK as well. I get the video and the bar that pops up at the bottom of the screen but when viewing on laptop, iPhone or iPad it's all very readable and doesn't interfere.
Surprised Hawaii isn't mentioned, as they haven't offered east-bounds beyond PHX, if I'm not mistaken.
Sounds like a great flexible option for travelers. Rock me Amadeus!
Increased aircraft utilization. What is the downside for SWA or their customers? None.
-No downside for SWA corporate.
-No downside for customers.
-Possible downside for flight crew? But then again, they did sign updated contracts and hopefully there will be enough volunteers for night shifts that things won't become problematic.
Overall good news.