In the second quarter of 2021 Southwest Airlines will launch service to Fresno and to Santa Barbara.

This isn’t the first time Southwest Airlines has sent planes to Fresno. After Southwest Airlines acquired Morris Air, that carrier briefly continued to fly to Fresno, however Southwest terminated service there before folding the acquired carrier into the larger airline. Southwest owned an airline that flew to Fresno before, but Southwest itself never has. (Several ex-Morris Air executives, not including JetBlue founder Dave Neeleman, believed in Fresno enough to launch charter flights from there to Vegas.)

Southwest has aggressively added destinations during the pandemic. Some, like Chicago O’Hare, because of a unique opportunity to gain access to an airport that was full prior to 2020. Others are leisure destinations where they’re seeking new revenue opportunities for planes that have nowhere to go.

Over the past couple of years Southwest growth has been constrained with the grounding of the MAX. They haven’t had the planes to add new destinations. Now they have a surplus of planes because they haven’t needed the frequencies they used to offer, especially on business routes between major cities. And with the end of ‘middle seat blocking’ on Southwest they have even less need to add incremental flights in those markets.