Southwest Airlines is making a play to gain corporate travel
market share with added service from Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas and Nashville.
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 Wichita, Kansas; Little Rock, Ark.; and
Birmingham, Ala. On the same date, Southwest will add three daily roundtrips
between Atlanta and Oklahoma City; Omaha, Neb.; and Louisville, Ky. Southwest had
discontinued Atlanta-Louisville service 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 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 GDSs to aid its
corporate business growth. Southwest began taking 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.
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Source: Business Travel News