Denver flights are coming back to Sonoma County.
Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport and Southwest Airlines announced today the Dallas-based commercial carrier will begin service in April with nonstop flights not only to Denver, but also to San Diego, Las Vegas and Burbank. The San Diego and Las Vegas routes are set to operate daily, including two San Diego roundtrips on peak days. Burbank will initially operate five days per week and Denver will operate on Saturdays only.
Airport Manager Jon Stout said Wednesday the partnership with Southwest has been in the works for 15 years but didn’t happen sooner for reasons that included the airport’s runway having been too short for the carrier’s aircraft. That has since been resolved, and Southwest also has made changes in its network and planning, he added.
“It has to make business sense, of course, but (Southwest) brought that team mentality and they wanted that partnership,” Stout said. “And we’re very much looking forward to continuing that and having a long, successful partnership together.”
Although the Denver flight will initially operate once a week, that could change sometime next year, said Andrew Watterson, chief operating officer at Southwest Airlines.
“If we see demand to and from Denver, or to connect over to Denver, then we can add more and more flights,” he said. “Once you open a route, it’s easy to add flights.”
That monitoring will begin Thursday when the new flights at STS become available for booking. So, even though service doesn’t begin until April 7, Southwest will have more than six months of data before the first flight to Denver takes off, he said.
“We are constantly looking at our schedule,” he said. “We won’t really see full demand until we probably get into spring break, but easily next year, you’ll see more flights to Denver if there’s demand.”
The news that Southwest will begin service at STS comes one month after the Sonoma County airport said goodbye to Avelo Airlines. Despite Avelo’s departure, and even without Southwest coming on board until next spring, Stout said he anticipates the airport will finish the year having flown between 812,000 and 849,000 passengers, a new record high.
Through July, the airport (code: STS) had seen more than a 15% year-over-year increase in passengers served, according to figures released in late August.
Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care, aviation and employment. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.
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