Southwest Airlines is turning Orlando into a mini-connecting hub for short haul intra-Florida routes, adding flights to Miami, Fort Myers, West Palm Beach and Sarasota to their existing Fort Lauderdale route.
NEW: Southwest Airlines will add 4 new routes from Orlando (MCO) to cities within Florida:
• MCO to Fort Myers (RSW)
• MCO to Miami (MIA)
• MCO to Sarasota (SRQ)
• MCO to West Palm Beach (PBI)All will operate 2x daily starting in August. These join MCO-FLL. pic.twitter.com/CbFa0ULcNt
— Ishrion Aviation (@IshrionA) December 12, 2024
These aren’t flights that will carry local passengers. You’re not going to fly from Orlando to Sarasota. And for intra-Florida, to avoid airports and security and long dwell time Brightline is already the better option.
Plus, Miami – Orlando already has American and Delta as competitors. Those feed long haul international flights, of course. Here, Southwest is looking for people traveling to and from Miami and connecting to do it when there are frequently non-stop options. They’ll be the low fare alternative for those specifically seeking out Southwest (their low fares won’t even appear on most comparison sites).
It may help fill flights in and out of Orlando. And they may have plenty of spare aircraft time, with planes sitting on the ground. I’m curious, too, if with some of their recent route cuts they have flight attendants off of some of these flights with extra flying time available and who aren’t receiving their contractual minimum hours. These flights could be cheaper to operate than it might seem.
Enilria comments,
All are 2x daily starting in August. Southwest flew MCO-RSW recently and bailed. MCO-MIA/PBI compete with Brightline which has been taking more and more traffic from the South Florida to MCO market, so those also make little sense.
I guess this is a way to fill planes in Orlando (MCO) that they are struggling to fill, but the usual solution in a market like MCO or LAS is just lower the fare 10% and poof the plane is full. Here WN will effectively be lowering the fare 25-35% because of the prorate that now goes to these spokes AND those routes will bleed with essentially no local and very low fare prorate leisure connects.
I’d note, though, that Southwest is launching a partnership with Icelandair, and they serve Orlando. Still, that’s just one flight, targeted at leisure travelers, many of whom would also be connecting over Reykjavik to get to Europe. Miami double connections to, say, Amsterdam would be real bottom-feeders on fares.
Actually, Gary, you’re wrong on the SRQ – MCO flights. I live in SRQ. What used to be a less than 2 hour drive to MCO (admittedly driving a bit over the speed limit) can sometimes now run 3-4 hours if there are incidents on I-75 and I-4. The SRQ-TPA growth is so bad that traffic can slow to a crawl for miles; it’s so unpredictable that if I have an international flight departing MCO I will leave SRQ the day prior and overnight in an MCO hotel. Also, there are one-way rental car fees, etc etc.
If I had an evening international flight out of MCO I wouldn’t hesitate to book a LUV flight from SRQ to MCO if it were in the $39-$69 range.
SW has made … unusual … picks before …. Herb said he added Nashville mostly ’cause his daughter was in a University there.
Where does Southwest generate most of it’s revenue from since most of it’s travel is leisure travel? What separates Southwest from Spirit?
The internal FL routes are questionable. If you’re going to SRQ/RSW why not just fly direct? MCO/TPA/MIA for AA is different as that’s used for connections in which there limited direct flights or none at all. There is some O&D but not enough to sustain flights.
The turnpike & I-95 are no longer “fast” routes to Orlando from SoFla, as you sorta mentioned with Brightline. BL is a good option *when they don’t hit another vehicle/semi/car* at a crossing. Brightline is even starting to get pricy, and I’ve seen cheaper fares on Silver lately. I see all these MCO Fla adds for connecting traffic, but they’ll get *some* local traffic.
Heck, even I flew Southwest from Palm Beach to Orlando when they first started Florida service! And yeah, it wasn’t very full. But I remember it being $39.
Um, makeup for cutting ATL?
I live in Sarasota. I hate the drive to Orlando but I hate even more the frequent weather/lightening delays at MCO. Drives me nuts to fly out of there during the summer. I don’t understand Southwest’s strategy here.
Southwest begging for all kinds of weather delays and unhappy customers with connections in Orlando
Big blunder. Orlando is a horrible airport. Nothing redeeming about it.
Not sure how much of a correlation there is but their inter island operation in Hawaii fell flat on its face. Although they had strong competition from Hawaiian.
My guess – this is Southwest pressing their network advantage against the thin networks of Breeze, Avelo, Allegiant, and even Frontier and Spirit. Those carriers typically have 2-4 flights a week to Florida destinations – many people will adjust their plans to fit the airline schedules, but others would rather not. These new shorthaul flights to MCO are a cheap way for Southwest to provide more connecting itineraries every day of the week and across the day. Yes, connections are less than ideal – but for many, a connection at the right time is better than changing your plans to wait for the next day a nonstop is offered.
For me, Brightline is a far better alternative. I take BL from West Palm Beach directly into Terminal C at MCO. If the fare from PBI is more than $49 more than the fare from MCO to any given destination, it’s cheaper to take BL (and the wine is better, and I can carry it onto BL from the “MaryMary” bar in the station). If I need to get to MIA (a CF of an airport if there ever was one), either BL or Tri-Rail can get me there.
I know of no current plans to expand BL beyond Tampa (trackage along I-4 announced earlier this year, with completion by 2029), and to JAX (using existing FEC trackage – rights acquired April 2024). Expansion is possible down the US-41/I-75 corridor, but likely not until the 2030s.
Stations are contemplated in Cocoa Beach to serve the cruise port at Port Canaveral, and in Stuart (approved by Martin County last week). There are plans for BL to serve Universal Orlando (land donated by Universal to BL, especially since Disney didn’t want BL anywhere on its land). And traffic to the cruise terminals at Port Everglades (FLL) and Miami is already able to be served by BL for a nominal charge (electric vehicle fleet at each station).
If I lived in the underserved southwest (no pun intended) part of Florida (RSW and SRQ), yes, I would take WN. That makes sense for WN. But I don’t see the long-term benefit to WN from service to MIA or PBI.
Is WN trying to make MCO some type of hub or focus city? It already has a strong presence at the airports in question:
– MCO: #1 airline with 22% of PAX volume
– RSW: #2 airline with 19% of PAX volume
– MIA: #4 airline with 6% of PAX volume
– SRQ: #1 airline with 26% of PAX volume
– PBI: #5 airline with 8% of PAX volume
Not much to be gained for the amount of resources involved. Most Florida traffic is north south oriented. Atlanta was a better choice for connections.