Southwest Airlines plans to become the dominant carrier at Santa Barbara Airport Business

When Southwest Airlines sinks in Santa Barbara next week, it is expected to become almost immediately the dominant airline in the local market.

A celebration is scheduled for Monday morning after the first unobstructed airline Boeing 737 plane crashed in Santa Barbara, carrying the inaugural Las Vegas passenger cargo.

Southwest’s initial schedule requires five non-stop daily flights: three to Las Vegas and one to Denver and Oakland.

“Just outside the door, Southwest Airlines – if it fills 50% of its flights – will occupy the dominant position in the Santa Barbara market,” Deanna Zachrisson, Santa Barbara Airport’s business development manager, told Noozhawk .

But the other airlines serving Santa Barbara (United, American and Alaska) are not expected to remain in their seats and plan to add capacity and routes starting in May and June, Zachrisson said.

“With Southwest’s current schedule, they will have about 40% of the total seats available, a larger share than any other company,” Zachrisson said. “However, we expect the other three airlines to increase capacity as air travel recovers, so it will be a bit moving for a while.

“Being able to accommodate that kind of capacity required the airport to make some changes to the building.”

Southwest does not charge for baggage expenses, Zachrisson noted, and the airline warned airport officials that its passengers tend to carry “much more” luggage than other airlines, including large, bulky items such as airline tables. surfing, golf clubs, skis “and even kayaks.”

To cope with this increase, the gutter was widened in the baggage reclaim area of ​​the terminal to more than double the previous size and a baggage service office was added for the southwest.

Other updates that have been made include new computer equipment and boarding pass readers and luggage tags in the lobby of tickets and capacity expansion on the Gate 5 podium to be able to board four flights to the boarding area on the ground simultaneously .

“In theory, depending on the type of aircraft, we could house eight aircraft on the ground at once,” Zachrisson said.

While Southwest is establishing itself in the market, the other airlines have their own plans, he said:

United will add a third non-stop daily flight to Denver from May 6. It will also resume daily service at Los Angeles International Airport, which was suspended a year ago, with a single flight early in the morning.

»American is scheduled to begin non-stop service over the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) at Chicago O’Hare International Airport from May 8, likely using Airbus A319 aircraft.

United also wants to add service to O’Hare sometime in June “depending on the availability of pilots and planes.”

»Alaska plans to add daily service to San Diego starting June 17th.

Delta Airlines, which suspended service between Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City last July due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has not announced whether or when flights will resume. Prior to the pandemic, the carrier offered three daily flights between the two cities.

Delta “still says he plans to return,” Zachrisson said, but did not provide any details.

Airline passenger traffic crashed in 2020 due to COVID-19, but has been gradually returning.

Santa Barbara Airport had its best year of 2019 (just one million passengers), but this year it projects much less, Zachrisson said.

“We’re all in unexplored territory – the biggest fall in history, followed by a recovery that we believe will take time, but no one knows for sure,” he said. “Most industry analysts believe the industry will not recover until 2019 levels by 2023.”

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