Southwest adds new routes from Austin and Orlando amid rising travel demand

Furthermore, Southwest plans to enhance its Florida network by offering four new intra-state routes starting August 2025. As reported by Ishrion Aviation on X (formerly Twitter), these routes include twice-daily flights from Orlando to Fort Myers, Miami, Sarasota, and West Palm Beach.

Austin has become a hub of activity with several airlines adding new routes recently. Earlier this year, Southwest launched flights from Austin to Milwaukee and Reno. Delta Air Lines has also been increasing its presence at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport with multiple new routes scheduled for next year.

Despite these expansions, Hawaiian Airlines will discontinue its Austin-Honolulu service in March 2025 due to its merger with Alaska Airlines.

Southwest's performance has exceeded expectations for the current quarter due to strong leisure travel demand and improvements in revenue management techniques. The company now anticipates a Q4 unit revenue increase between 5.5% and 7% year-on-year.

During the Thanksgiving holiday period from November 25 to December 1, Southwest operated almost 27,000 flights carrying approximately 3.46 million passengers with an impressive on-time performance rate of 88% and a flight completion factor of 99.9%.