Southwest Airlines nonstop Logan- Chicago, Logan – Baltimore flights soon

Southwest Airlines plans to start nonstop daily flights from Boston to Chicago and Baltimore.

Southwest Airlines will run 10 flights daily from Boston’s Logan International Airport, five each to Baltimore/Washington Thurgood Marshall Airport and Chicago, starting August 2009.

The fares will be on the lower side for these services, $89 one-way for Chicago and $49 one-way for Baltimore/Washington.
For Long, Southwest Airlines has chosen secondary, low-cost airports to run its services.

Now Southwest has changed its strategy to fly to bigger airports.

Southwest’s executive vice president of strategy and planning, Bob Jordan, though, denied that Southwest Airlines flies only to small airports.

“We’re in bigger airports – Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix. We don’t avoid larger airports. We’re flying between 90 [million] to 100 million customers each year,” Jordan was quoted as saying.

“And we have a built-in group of people who want to go to places like New York. They want to go to Boston. If you’re not there, they can’t fly you. So we need to be there,” he added.

Southwest has been flying to airports near Manchester, N.H., Providence, and Hartford since 1990. In February 2009, Southwest Airlines had said that it had plans to start flights to Boston Logan.

“We’ve been wanting to come to Boston for a while because we found that we weren’t really luring big numbers of passengers from the central Boston area to Manchester and Providence,” Jordan said.

“Southwest’s much anticipated arrival at Boston Logan will benefit the traveling public with great service and even greater fares,” said Edward C. Freni, Director Aviation for the Massachusetts Port Authority about the announcement made today.”

“Southwest’s August landing leaves no doubt that Logan is the choice for both cost conscious leisure and business travelers without compromising service. Chicago Midway and Baltimore/Washington are two important markets for New Englanders,” he added.

In April 2009, Southwest Airlines had revealed plans to launch flights out of New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, and services between Midway and Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Presently, Southwest operates more than 3,300 flights a day and has more than 35,000 Employees systemwide.