If it was not yet obvious, the airlines of the southwest today are not the southwest of their parents.
A few days after CEO Bob Jordan spoke of Potential for long distance destinations – Think of Europe, no Kansas – The airline did its first performance at the Annual Meeting of the International Air Transport Association of the Global Aviation Trade Air Group in New Delhi. The meeting is a who is who of the senior aviation leadership where the agreements are made.
Steven Swan, managing director of International at Southwest, acknowledged this during a sitting in New Delhi.
“It’s a great change for us,” he said.
Southwest flew for the first time outside the US. In 2014 – Airran Airways operated international flights as a southwest subsidiary before that, the programming data of the Cirium Aviation Analysis Firm. But since then, the airline has been better known for its domestic amplitude than foreign reach.
“We understand that our clients also want to go to places outside the country, and we want to be able to provide them with that opportunity,” Swan said.
Just appearing in New Delhi is a symbol, at least for the airline industry, of Southwest’s internationalization.
And the possibility of long distance flights occurs during a period of dramatic change for the airline. Bags stopped flying last week. Orthogroom seats go for sale In October. AND Open seat ends At the beginning of next year. And then there is the possibility of southwest halls, or even first class, in the future.
New destinations are approaching abroad
Southwest has not added a new international destination from Cozumel International Airport (CZM) in 2020, as shown by the Cirium schedules. That does not mean that it has not grown; The airline added 17 new US destinations.
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Domestic growth has slowed down: the airline He left four cities, including CozumelIn 2024, and Southwest is “making the transition,” as Swan said, to expand his international map.
Swan was a diplomat about where the carrier could go, paraphrasing the often repeated line of former Ceo Gary Kelly on southwest that has about 50 international destinations it could serve.
He said that Southwest’s next international additions would follow the pattern of the cities that it already serves. That is: heavy leisure destinations in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America that serve American tourists.
However, after those cities connect, the sky is the limit, or at least the range of one of the Boeing 737 Max of Southwest.
“We believe that their first incursions into the long -distance international service could involve connecting with Reykjavík, which is in rank for its [737] Max 8S, “wrote Tom Fitzgerald, an analyst at the TD Cowen airline, in a report on May 31. He cited the existing Southwest association with Iceland and pointed out that the European service could” boost the credit card spending of the brand of rapid members of rewards. “
When asked to comment on the Fitzgerald report, Swan said: “Anything that is within the Max range calls us the appeal to the network.”
He added that Icelandir, what southwest began to connect with At Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) airport in January, it does a “fantastic work.”
Rapid rewards associations are in process
A great piece that is missing in the association of Isoyair of Southwest is loyalty. Currently, it only connects the travelers and reviewed the bags with the flights of the European airline in six US airports.
With attention Fast rewards The accumulation of points and redemption, and perhaps even the benefits of loyalty, have the potential to make any international link much richer for both southwest and its partner.
Southwest is working to provide customers “the ability to use their fast reward points to travel wherever you want to go, if that is in Asia, or that’s in Europe, or that is in Africa,” Swan said.
The IT systems needed to boost loyalty links, code transfers or more are, as with so many technology things in Southwest, in process, he explained.
Meanwhile, travelers can expect China Airlines to join Iceland as a southwest partner in 2026. Get attacked with the Taiwanese carrier It will look very similar: travelers can book flights on both airlines on a single itinerary and airlines will transfer pictures. The benefits of loyalty and anything else is to come.
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