SFO’s biggest airline forecasts record busy Thanksgiving travel

Bay Area residents are all familiar with “red-eye” flights — those that depart late in the evening and arrive the next morning. But did you know that one of the state’s largest carriers — Southwest Airlines — has never operated any red-eyes? Now it looks like that will change, which could bring new flight options for trips to the eastern U.S. In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said that adding red-eye flights to its schedule would be “a logical evolution for us. We have the aircraft, it’s a great way to use an asset that you already have and use it more productively, which means more hours in the day. So we will be doing red-eyes.” Jordan didn’t say which routes are likely to get the overnight flights, or when they will start, but departures from the West Coast are an obvious target. Southwest controls 80% of the market at Oakland International and more than half at San Jose Mineta, as well as 5% at SFO.

That’s not the only big change that may be coming at Southwest. Since its founding, Southwest’s flights in the Dallas area have operated from close-in Love Field, and it stayed there even after the big Dallas/Fort Worth Airport opened 50 years ago. Southwest controls 18 of the 20 gates at Love Field, but there’s no room for it to expand there, so now it has its eye on DFW. CBS News said the airline confirmed it has “engaged in preliminary discussions with DFW International Airport to further serve customers throughout the area.” An airline spokesperson told CBS that Southwest is discussing “a moderate amount of flights from DFW,” with no decisions likely until sometime next year. 

With the year-end holiday travel season about to begin, it looks like the pre-pandemic hassles of overcrowded airports and full flights will be back with a vengeance this year. United Airlines, which controls 45% of all passenger traffic at San Francisco International, is expecting its busiest-ever Thanksgiving travel period, which it defines as Nov. 17 through 29. The airline’s passenger total during that period is likely to be 5.9 million — up 13% from last year and 5% greater than the same days in 2019 before COVID-19 hit. The airline’s busiest travel day will likely be Sunday, Nov. 26, when it expects to handle 517,000 customers. American Airlines said this week it is expecting a record 7.8 million passengers over Thanksgiving. From Nov. 16 through 28, AA said, it will operate more than 70,000 flights, with Nov. 26 and 27 as the busiest and second-busiest days, respectively. 

Following the stir among its frequent flyers that Delta caused by raising the requirements for SkyMiles elite status in 2024, United this week reassured its MileagePlus members that it will not take a similar step. “You will not have to earn more Premier qualifying points (PQP) or take more Premier qualifying flights (PQF) to get status” in 2024, United said on its website.  The airline will also give members who hold Premier status next Feb. 1 a “head start” bonus of PQPs in their accounts, ranging from 250 for Premier Silver members to 1,250 for 1Ks. The airline said it is also boosting the number of PQPs earned by spending with MileagePlus credit cards issued by Chase.

Under the new schedule, every $500 in card spending will earn 25 PQPs; previously, it required $12,000 in spending to earn 500 PQPs, so this amounts to a 20% increase in earnings. The maximum number of PQPs that can be earned with the United Club Infinite Card next year will be 10,000, a 25% increase. In addition, “we’re removing the annual cap of 15,000 PQPs that you can earn from qualifying spend across multiple eligible United MileagePlus credit cards issued by Chase,” United said. The Points Guy has a deep dive into all the latest changes. 

The rapid growth of Austin, Texas, as a tech center and a cool place to live has led to a big expansion of airline service at Austin-Bergstrom Airport in recent years — especially by Southwest and American Airlines. But now there are signs that growth may have peaked. We reported last week that Virgin Atlantic has decided to drop its new Austin-London route in January due to a lack of passenger demand. And this week comes word that American Airlines is planning a major downsizing at AUS. One of the routes getting the ax is Sacramento-Austin, which is scheduled to drop from six flights a week to four as of Jan. 8, then lose all AA service Feb. 12. According to Aeroroutes.com, American is due to drop 18 Austin routes in January and March, including Albuquerque, Bozeman, Cincinnati, Cozumel, El Paso, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Reno, St. Louis, Tampa, Tulsa, Vail/Eagle (Colorado), and Washington Dulles. Austin-Montego Bay, Jamaica, flights, which were due to resume in March, have also been dropped.  

The Points Guy notes that a few more AA international route suspensions from Austin will follow in March and April, including Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; Liberia, Costa Rica; Nassau, Bahamas; and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The Points Guy said most of the affected Austin routes are flown by AA’s regional affiliates and may have been scrapped due to a clause in its pilot contract that limits regional flying. Still, “no matter how you cut it, Austin seemingly wasn’t working for American,” The Points Guy said.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is siding with JetBlue and other carriers as an international dispute heats up over restrictions on access to Amsterdam’s giant Schiphol Airport in 2024. The Dutch government recently ordered Schiphol to reduce flight operations at the airport next year by almost 10% from 2019 levels to alleviate environmental and noise concerns. The airport’s resulting plan would ban airlines that recently started flying to AMS — like JetBlue, which filed a complaint with DOT about its pending loss of access — and would require longstanding users of the airport to reduce their flight activity. According to Reuters, DOT told the Dutch government that the capacity reduction plans “constitute unjustifiable and unreasonable activities … and are in violation of the U.S.-E.U. Air Transport Agreement.” The agency ordered Dutch carriers to submit their U.S. 2024 flight schedules in case DOT decides to retaliate. JetBlue isn’t the only opponent of the capacity controls: Airlines for America, the U.S. carrier trade organization, also opposes them, noting U.S. airlines stand to lose 339 landing slots at AMS. KLM and the International Air Transport Association also oppose the AMS flight cuts.  

After serving Denver International Airport for more than a decade, low-cost Spirit Airlines said it will stop flying there Jan. 9. Over those years, Spirit has flown to 16 cities out of DEN, but it’s now down to three — Las Vegas, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale. The airline noted that it has had to reconsider its flight schedules as it faces mandatory inspections of Pratt & Whitely engines used on many of its Airbus A321neos, and it also cited “underperformance” of its Denver routes.

United said this week it is expecting a big bump in traffic to Florida this winter, so it is increasing its schedule there by 20% over last year. Some Florida routes will get larger aircraft this winter and others will get more flight frequencies. For example, United said it will double the number of seats flown into Key West from its hubs at Newark, Chicago, Houston and Washington Dulles. The carrier also plans to deploy brand-new Airbus A321neos on “select routes” to Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Fort Myers starting next month. United said that based on its internal data, Miami and Orlando “are two of the top-five most searched domestic travel destinations this winter.” (The others are Honolulu, Cancun and Las Vegas.) 

Denver International has a new premium lounge. The Plaza Premium Lounge, operated in partnership with Capitol One, is in DEN’s Concourse A near Gate A34. It’s open to the public for a fee of $65 per person. (According to Capitol One’s website, Venture X and Venture X Business cardholders get unlimited free access, while Venture and Spark cardholders get two free visits annually.) The lounge is open daily from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and provides dining stations, a full bar, grab-and-go food, relaxation rooms, and shower suites. Capitol One also has lounges in Dallas/Fort Worth’s Terminal D and Washington Dulles’ Main Terminal.