Southwest Airlines Cuts Midweek Flights: Reasons Behind the Change

Southwest Airlines will significantly reduce midweek flying capacity next year, becoming the latest airline to implement such changes.

Moving forward, the carrier will cut back on flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Southwest executives told reporters during an earnings call last week. The reductions, effective January, are being implemented in response to shifts in traveler preferences post-pandemic.

“While our network is largely restored at this point, it is not optimized, especially for post-pandemic shifts and business travel,” CEO Robert Jordan stated during the call.

Overall, the reduction in flight capacity on Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be 7 to 10 percent lower compared to the busier days of Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, according to the airline’s COO Andrew Watterson. However, this reduction will vary depending on the travel season.

Moreover, Watterson mentioned the airline will shift focus from servicing “mostly short-haul, business-heavy routes to more medium and long-haul routes with a lower proportion of business travelers.”

“With a higher leisure mix and a decrease in the number of business trips taken per traveler, it gives us an opportunity to reevaluate our current network design. Pre-pandemic, those travelers were more inclined towards short-haul travel with frequent trips and more midweek journeys. Yet, our present network is designed with the assumption that those travel patterns would revert,” Ryan Green, Southwest’s Executive VP and Chief Commercial Officer, noted. “We are making alterations to accommodate where our customers are traveling and when they are traveling, including both the time of day and the day of the week. This optimization process will be largely finalized by the spring of 2024.”

Additionally, Southwest is not the only airline making these adjustments. Low-cost carriers such as Allegiant Airlines and Frontier Airlines are also scaling back on select flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Allegiant cited a dual rationale: lower demand during the week and the need to prepare for any operational challenges in advance.

United Airlines has stated its intent to cut back on flights from its Newark, NJ hub, aiming to mitigate flight disruptions and enhance recovery speed in instances of issues like bad weather, which are inevitable in the aviation industry.