Southwest is launching service to Hawaii next week but is leaving far too much at the table thanks to its quirky scheduling policies.
The problem can be summed up in one word: redeyes. Southwest doesn’t do them and has never done them. But now that it is serving Hawaii, it really needs to start them if it wants to fully realize the potential of its new Hawaii service.
Right now, you will receive an error message on southwest.com if trying to book a return from Hawaii to the Midwest or East Coast. That’s because flights from Hawaii do not arrive in time to make same-day connections and the Southwest reservation system appears unable to handle overnight layovers or double connections.
It’s easy enough to get around this to book a return as a multi-city, routing Hawaii to the West Coast and then from the West Coast to your final destination. But if you do this, you are looking at an overnight layover in Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, or San Diego. A hotel plus meals can often zap all the money you saved by flying Southwest over a competitor.
But why no redeyes? What is is the hindrance to offering redeyes? Southwest told its employees:
When developing these schedules, our primary focus was to offer the best possible timings for local customers (in Hawaii and California). As we continue to add service to Hawaii and increase some of our technical capabilities, we will only see more cities gain connections to the state.
We hear about this “technical capabilities” whenever redeyes are mentioned. Are Southwest’s systems really so old that they simply cannot handle a flight that departs one day and arrives the next? That doesn’t seem right, since many flights depart in the afternoon and arrive just after midnight.
Why Southwest Doesn’t Fly Redeyes
Cranky Flier put that question to Southwest’s Corporate Historian, Richard West, nearly four years ago. Are the lack of redeyes due to technical limitations or simply strategy?
It’s a little bit of both in terms of how we set up our schedule. On the technical side, there is nothing in our system that prevents us from operating a flight that spans two business days, and we frequently operate charter and maintenance flights based on operational or charter Customer’s needs. We have used software on the advanced scheduling side that was not originally built to accommodate redeye itineraries, primarily in the way connections are handled. There is an effort underway to have our scheduling system and all the downstream applications support selling redeye flying, but as of the moment, we don’t have any immediate plans to start offering anything along these lines at the moment.
That was in 2015 and in 2017 Southwest replaced its aged reservation system with a new platform that could supposedly handle redeyes. There is also nothing barring pilots or FAs from serving on redeye flights. But we still don’t see them and I have to wonder, based on the two quotes above, if there are still technical limitations at play.
CONCLUSION
I get that Southwest is a point-to-point airline and doesn’t sell double connections or overnight layovers. Its model has worked very well for it. But Hawaii is a new market and if Southwest wants to compete it needs to think about offering redeyes and double or even triple connections on its websites. Think about it, say a customer living in Washington, DC wants to fly Southwest from Maui. We are looking at inter-island flight, flight to the west coast, flight to Chicago or Dallas, and finally a flight to National or Dulles. If the passenger wants to subject herself to that sort of punishment, Southwest should not only be willing to sell her the ticket but make it easy to buy.
image: Southwest
Southwest might end up with a lot of lopsided traffic patterns if people book them one way to Hawaii and then a different carrier home on redeye. This also saves you that last night’s hotel which is probably more expensive than the flight home to the east coast.
Another good point, Mark.
I agree with Mark, this not could but will lead to one way over and a different carrier coming back. You’re excited going over but dead tired coming back and not in the mood for cut and paste flights. They have the network now they need to make it happen. I am not sure anyone really cares about red eyes coming back.
omg this is hilarious …. every other carrier with any meaningful hawaiian presence has SCORES of east-bound red eyes coming back covering a wide swath of airports at either end, and just because WN fails to even reach par for the course, their loyalists are now spreading the “I am not sure anyone really cares about red eyes coming back” BS to downplay their weakness.
hahahahhahah
I read his comment to be “nobody minds a red eye flight coming back”. Not nobody cares if they are provided or not. He was agreeing with Mark above who said they need to be offered.
Didn’t they briefly operate red-eye flights after acquiring AirTran? Or did those only ever run under FL numbers and not WN?
Southwest is also missing charging ports or plugs! You’re flying halfway to Asia and you have to have enough battery power to stay entertained, because SWA thinks they’re too good to put USB ports or plugs on their planes.
I’m not sure I buy the redeye issue. Sure I get it, but they could have early morning flights coming back with enough schedule to make late day connections East. I actually think this is a West Coast issue more than anything. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the West Coast doing business and wanted to catch an early evening flight home to the Midwest only to find such limited options that time of day.
Problem is currently the east-bound flights from CA airports may not have late enough departures to allow arrivals from HI to connect. I just looked up Oakland flights to DC and latest departure to National is 10 AM and to Dulles 1 PM. Considering a 2-hour time difference and 5-hour flight, a flight would need to leave HI at 4 AM to make it in by noon at Oakland just to make the single latest non-stop to Dulles. Given most West Coast folks wouldn’t typically want to catch such an early morning flight since there are currently are other options for them, this confirms the Southwest narrative that the current setup was put in place with local markets in mind, not folks in the Midwest or East Coast.
I actually agree with your conclusion (that a lack of late east-bound flights from the West Coast is the problem), but disagree that that refutes your premise (that a lack of redeye flights isn’t also the issue). The reason behind your conclusion is likely because Southwest has traffic research that shows there aren’t enough of their passengers that travel east from CA that prefer late lights, given the travel time and time difference. Remember this is not a major airline, so they only operate flights where they can consistently turn a profit with the traffic they have. Therefore, instead of changing their model for continental flights to accommodate a new route, it would make more sense to add redeye flights to that route to connect with other current routes.
It was my understanding that it was maintenance scheduling, rather than a booking or staffing problem for WN redeyes. If the framework isn’t there for maintaining aircraft on a non-nightly basis, it would make sense that they still aren’t ready to pull the trigger on redeyes.
One of the reasons we cant do redeyes is because the employee contracts would have to be renegotiated. Redeye pay is different, for airline employees across the board. And as you’ve all probably seen in the news, contract renegotiations are no easy task. Just a major point you should include in your article…
My sources tell me there is nothing in FA or pilot contracts that prohibit redeye service. I do understand that forcing mechanics to work later might be problematic.
Matthew, there are thousands of people working on the ground at SWA. Not just mechanics.
Quite right. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, just note that the mechanics have been so troublesome lately to Southwest.
Is it true that the pilot and flight attendant contracts permit redeye flights but the pay for such flights is a premium?
yes 10 seconds of googling would bring this up.
https://www.airlinepilothiring.net/TentativeAgreements/Southwest2015/Southwest_2015.pdf
Nothing that prohibits but the rates are much higher…. And basically Southwest says they will not pay that price. So yea…. kinda of problem.
https://www.airlinepilothiring.net/TentativeAgreements/Southwest2015/Southwest_2015.pdf
Page 18. There is labor Rate for redeyes. So I am not sure you need to talk to sources when the info is publicly available.
Not sure you did your homework.
“Southwest doesn’t do them and has never done them.”
I’m taking a red eye from Fort Lauderdale that leaves at 9:20PM and gets in at 12:20AM.
I’ve taken red eyes from Las Vegas, Chicago Mid-Way as well as Baltimore.
Unsure that your statement is 100% accurate.
Redeyes depart late at night and arrive the following morning. A flight that arrives just after midnight is technically not a redeye, at least by most accepted definitions.
Little bit of an exaggeration. I booked a flight from Maui to San Jose then San Jose to bwi the next day. No interlsland flight, no other us stop. 2 direct flights. Yes would be better if Southwest could accommodate the booking be simple, but was hard.
Pleaseeee…this is just the start. Swa is concentrating on bay area passengers first. They don’t need other passengers because the bay area and close west airports can fill their planes atm. Esp with the companion pass being given to whoever signed up for cc during promo period that just ended in Feb. This was the master plan to ramp up the west coast for the initial Hawaii offering. And what’s wrong with competition? Swa entering Hawaii just effectively forced every other airline to drop their prices to match them. Just because you can’t take Swa doesn’t mean they didn’t help you with cost on other carriers and you never had them as an option any other time before so why does it matter now. Also if you’re not an economy flyer swa isn’t even an option.
Matthew the fact the Southwest Airlines is not connecting East Coast to Hawaii is actually a very thought out process. The West Coast vacation destinations top choices are Hawai’i and Mexico. East coast and Midwest vacation destinations usually include Florida and the Caribbean. Southwest does fly to Aruba, but if you look at our schedule you can’t get from Seattle to Aruba on Southwest Airlines the same day. Southwest Airlines tries to get customers by region to the number one and two vacation destinations as well as the business destinations. They do not try to connect their route map across all 100+ cities. Think of a pizza parlor they make pizza, that’s what they’re known for, they don’t try to make hamburgers because they’re not known to it nor do they want to.
With $49 tickets to Hawaii, do you really think they need to rely on connecting passengers to fill these planes??
SWA biz plan has always been transparently based on regional efficiency. I dont think they honestly care….nor should they…if a BWI passenger can easily get to Hawaii and back. Just like they dont care if a Seattle passenger can efficiently get to Grand Caymans. Nobody complained about that so what is different here and now? I applaude SWA for trying to offer West Coasters the same variety of vaca flight options on West Coast that have been available to East Coast for years. Great biz model and great company. If you want to fly NYC to Hawaii stick to Hawaiian Airlines and quit complaining…they already offer great rates and service. Quit bashing a company that has continually forced others to improve in order to compete
Guess what, we who live on the west coast don’t give a s*** about the east coast. We’re on the WEST coast. I’m sick of you whiny mother f***** complaints every f**** day but still I have to watch your weather report on the national news every day bc you cunts are a bunch of p****. If you want a fat f*** lie flat seat then book your overweight, obese fat a** on another airline and gtfo 808.
Watch your language. And as a Los Angeles resident, I still care.
So they censored every oath except the c word? LOL Or is that another flaw in your new software?!?
I’m not sure Southwest really needs to compete with the legacy airlines and their connecting flights. There’s a lot of people with family in Hawaii living in California, a lot people who hail from California living in Hawaii, along with a lot of business travel between the states, not to mention the many Californians that vacation in Hawaii. They could probably fill those 737s with people who are tired of paying $400+bag fees to fly to Hawaii without ever worrying about making east coast connections work. They are more likely competing with Alaska and Hawaiian which primarily connect west coast cities to Hawaii and don’t serve many cities away from the Pacific. And hey, for the east coast crowd they do fly to Aruba.
This is 100%. This is plan for Southwest.
Why is this even a story. What about all us West Coast Residents who can’t fly on Southwest in one day, to most of the Caribbean destinations and some of the Central America flights as well in one day?
Lol typical East Coast bias crap. I agree why does this matter. I can not go from LAX to Aruba just like Marcus said. But suddenly it is big deal cuz it is Hawaii or something… Where was the outrage for the last 5 years for flights the other way?
Guess what Southwest is not dumb, they ran the math. Probably not worth fixing the two problems below to do it. 1 in 10 Americans live in California ….
That is the problem, everybody on the East Coast is all mad thinking someone how Southwest must serve them or something. Take a different airline then..
Also this has been covered a thousand times. They still have issues with business ops software that has not been upgraded yet. They can do it for some flights like you mentioned but it is way to much work to do for bunch of flights.
Also the union contract with pilots has negotiated labor rate that is very high for Redeyes and southwest will not pay it….. like this common knowledge…
But sure Southwest should change there whole business model to serve people on the East Coast.
You understand what there plan for Hawaii is right? They want to take all of the Cali market if they can. Oakland, San Jose, Sac are pretty much all Southwest flights. Hell SMF (my home airport) is about 75% Southwest flights for the whole airport.
Drop prices low make Alaskan pull out. Then battle with Hawaiian. Why would they bother taking on Legacy airlines?
But sure Southwest are the dumb ones here…