Southwest to Launch Cincinnati Flights

Southwest to Fly to Cincinnati Airport Starting in June

If you lived in the Greater Cincinnati area and wanted to take advantage of Southwest Airlines’ low fares, you’d have to drive nearly an hour to Dayton, Ohio.  Southwest Airlines serves 99 destinations throughout the Americas and Cincinnati wasn’t one of them, until yesterday.   The airline that created the low-cost carrier has finally announced that it will serve Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport beginning in June.

Destinations Include Baltimore, Chicago

When Southwest launches flights to Cincinnati this coming June, the airline will serve two cities in the United States; Baltimore, MD and Chicago, IL via Midway Airport.  Both Baltimore and Chicago are two of the airline’s largest and most dominant hubs in the country and will offer passengers the ability to connect to other cities.  Because Southwest operates an all Boeing 737 fleet, it’s pretty much assumed that these new routes will be served with Boeing 737s (a mix of -700s and -800s).

Details of the First Flights

Southwest Airlines will begin flights to those two US hubs in June.  On June 4th, 2017, Southwest Airlines will offer three daily nonstop flights to Baltimore-Thurgood Marshall Airport and four daily nonstop flights to Chicago-Midway Airport.  On Monday (June 5th), Southwest’s schedule indicates an additional flight to each city will be added making for four and five daily nonstops to Baltimore and Chicago, respectively.

Bad News for Dayton, OH

These new nonstop flights are great news for customers in Cincinnati, however, are bad news for Dayton, Ohio.  Though the two airports are located nearly 70 miles apart, this distance is short enough for Southwest Airlines to pull flights out of Dayton, OH and serve Cincinnati exclusively.  Southwest Airlines will pull flights from Dayton to Chicago-Midway, Orlando, and Tampa on June 3rd, a day before flights to Cincinnati commence.  However, Dayton, OH will still be served by the nation’s top airlines with service to Chicago (via O’Hare), Orlando (via Sanford), and Tampa (via St. Petersburgh) on other airlines.

Overall

Southwest Airlines not serving Cincinnati become something of a meme in the airline geek community.  However, this joke wasn’t sitting well with locals that had to drive nearly an hour to fly on the low-cost carrier.  Finally, after decades, Southwest Airlines will fly to the airport plagued with high airfare due to Delta’s massive presence at the former Delta hub.  The presence of a new low-cost airline will likely drive prices down on certain routes and will provide locals with new destinations and additional options when traveling.