Southwest Airlines chose the last week as the launch pad to debut seven new routes on its North American network, starting on 6 August with a 2,791-kilometre link between Milwaukee (MKE) and San Diego (SAN), a route facing no competition.

The only other route launched by Southwest Airlines that will not face an incumbent is the 3,843-kilometre coast-to-coast paring of Baltimore/Washington (BWI) and Sacramento (SMF). This becomes the airline’s third longest route after Los Angeles to Liberia (4,228 kilometres) and Baltimore/Washington to Oakland (3,925 kilometres). The five other routes launched by Southwest this week will face direct competition, with the international link from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Nassau (NAS), the carrier’s second route to the Bahamas airport after Baltimore/Washington, seeing the strongest contest as three other airlines already serve the short 293-kilometre pairing. The average weekly frequency of Southwest’s new services is 6.8.

Launch date	From	To	Aircraft (W/F)	Competition
6 August	Milwaukee (MKE)	San Diego (SAN)	B73W (7)
7 August	Baltimore/Washington (BWI)	Sacramento (SMF)
	Fort Lauderdale (FLL)	Nassau (NAS)		JetBlue Airways (35), Bahamas Air (28), SkyBahamas (8)
	Los Angeles (LAX)	Pittsburgh (PIT)		American Airlines (6)
	Nashville (BNA)	Charlotte Douglas (CLT)	B73W (6)	American Airlines (54)
	Portland (PDX)	Burbank (BUR)	B73W (7)	Alaska Airlines (21)
		Ontario (ONT)		Alaska Airlines (14)
Source: OAG Schedules Analyser data w/c 9 August 2016.

Aenna / Duncan Stewart