Wanna Get Away? Southwest Adds Service to the Mile High City of Denver

Southwest Airlines, the largest airline in the world in number of passengers carried, has recently announced plans to expand service from the newest city it serves: Denver, Colorado. Southwest has only been serving Denver since 2006, when it began serving three cities with thirteen flights. This newest round of expansion brings Southwest's Denver service to 61 daily flights. These new flights not only give residents of Colorado better travel opportunities, tourists will also find much easier access to the Mile High City.

The recently announced additional flights are to four cities from Denver. Beginning on June 4^th, two nonstop daily nonstop trips to both Portland, Oregon and Indianapolis, Indiana will begin. Also being added on that day is an additional daily nonstop trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, bringing the total to eight daily. Beginning on August 23^rd, Southwest will add an additional daily nonstop to San Antonio, Texas; bring the total for the pair of cities to two.

Growth in today's airline world is very hard to make profitable, when airlines are reporting hundreds of millions of dollar losses per quarter. When asked about the growth of Southwest in Denver, Southwest's CEO Gary Kelly had the following to say, "Denver has been and will remain a focus city for us, The market is responding very well to our growth, and as a result, we are excited to add more flights and destinations at low fares for our Denver Customers." To kick of the addition of these new routes, Southwest is selling tickets at $69 one way, with a fourteen day advance purchase.

With the recently problems in the airline world, Southwest move of expanding service to Denver can be seen as a strategic move. Two airlines have hubs in Denver, United Airlines and most notably Frontier Airlines. Frontier Airlines is very similar to Southwest, a no-frill airline, operating at a low cost. Just weeks ago, Frontier Airlines announced that they would be seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, in order to restructure the airline and make it profitable. Southwest's move of adding flights into can be seen as a move to try to kill off the competition, by invading their home turf. If Southwest would be successful in "killing" their competition, they would gain a large market share in a significant city, making them a much more profitable airline. Only time will tell if this move will be successful, but in the short term, it will be a benefit to those who desire more connections to and from Denver, Colorado.