Last month I broke the news that Southwest Airlines would start selling overnight connection flights for the first time. The plan was initially to launch this on June 26, but it was delayed. The airline has a new date this time: Wednesday, July 19th.

Southwest won’t offer redeye flights, but will use their current schedule to sell itineraries that involve an overnight layover at six airports – Baltimore; Denver; Las Vegas; Phoenix; Chicago Midway; and Oakland.

These aren’t new flights being added, just new itineraries they can sell (and that customers should be on the lookout for, because they’re options that many will potentially want to avoid).

Two examples they gave last month where they’ll be selling an overnight connecting option are Honolulu to Houston and Seattle to Cancun.

Unaccompanied minors can’t book these connections. However passengers could also be re-accommodated on overnight itineraries during irregular operations, though passengers wouldn’t be forced to take this option if that happens.

This may be one first step in offering redeye flights, which Southwest hasn’t done before. Their reservations system now supports those. However I don’t expect it to happen within the next couple of years – Southwest doesn’t have the pilot capacity to fully utilize all of their aircraft during the day, so they’re unlikely to add redeyes before adding more daytime flying (although redeyes might first come to Hawaii – mainland routes).