Southwest Airlines is making a play to gain corporate travel marketshare with added service from Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas and Nashville, when it expects business travel demand will begin to pick up again.
New service will include nonstop flights six days per week between Nashville and Orange County/Santa Ana, Calif., as well as between Ontario, Calif., and Houston Hobby in early November. On Dec. 17, Southwest will add daily service between Phoenix and Memphis and between Denver and each Wichita, Little Rock and Birmingham, Ala. On the same date, Southwest also will add three daily roundtrips between Atlanta and each Oklahoma City, Omaha and Louisville, the latter a nonstop service Southwest discontinued in 2014.
"We anticipate business travelers will hit the road with a heightened focus on costs, so we're pairing unmatched schedules with our value and hospitality to welcome them back, whenever they're ready to travel," Southwest EVP and chief commercial officer Andrew Watterson said in a statement. "Never before has Southwest been more primed to emerge as the preferred choice of corporate travel as the business climate across America begins its recovery."
The carrier expects its new availability in global distribution systems will aid its corporate business growth as well. Southwest began taking corporate travel bookings through Travelport's Apollo and Worldspan GDSs earlier this month and expects its content will be live in Amadeus and Travelport's Galileo GDSs later this year.