, following the previously announced March 2011 launch of
service from Newark to Chicago and St. Louis. Southwest is making use of 18 daily slots
relinquished by Continental Airlinesas a condition of its merger with United Airlines. Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said establishing a Newark presence is "a very important piece of our desire to strategically add the New York area to our route map. We've got eight dailies to LaGuardia, we'll be adding now 18 with Newark and, of course, the
AirTran acquisition--once we get that closed--will bring us additional LaGuardia positions as well."