Southwest Airlines poised to become dominant airline at Santa Barbara Airport | Company

When Southwest Airlines flies into Santa Barbara next week, it is expected to become the dominant airline in the local market almost immediately.

A party is scheduled for Monday morning after the no-nonsense airline’s first Boeing 737 plane lands in Santa Barbara, bringing its inaugural cargo of passengers from Las Vegas.

On Southwest’s original schedule, there are five daily nonstop flights: three to Vegas and one to Denver and Oakland.

“Right after the gate, Southwest Airlines – if their flights are even 50% full – will take the dominant position in the Santa Barbara market,” Deanna Zachrisson, Santa Barbara Airport’s business development manager, told Noozhawk.

But the other airlines serving Santa Barbara – United, American and Alaska – are not expected to stay in their seats and plan to add capacity and routes from May and June, Zachrisson said.

“With Southwest’s current schedule, they will have about 40% of the total available seats, a larger share than any other airline,” said Zachrisson. “However, we expect the three other airlines to add capacity as air travel recovers, so it will be a little bit moving for a while.

“To accommodate that kind of capacity, the airport had to make some changes to the building.”

Southwest doesn’t charge baggage fees, Zachrisson noted, and the airline warned airport officials that its passengers tend to carry “a lot more” baggage than other airlines, including bulky and bulky items like surfboards, golf clubs, “skis and even kayaks.”

To accommodate that increase, the parachute in the terminal’s baggage claim area was expanded to more than double its previous size and a Southwest baggage service office was added.

Other upgrades that have been made include new computer equipment and boarding pass and baggage label readers in the ticket lobby, and increased capacity on the Gate 5 stage to board four flights simultaneously at the ground boarding area.

“In theory, depending on the aircraft type, we can place eight aircraft on the ground at a time,” said Zachrisson.

As Southwest moves into the market, the other airlines have plans of their own, she said:

»United will add a third daily non-stop flight to Denver starting May 6. It will also resume daily service to Los Angeles International Airport, which was discontinued a year ago, with a single early morning flight.

»American will begin nonstop service to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) on May 8, usually with Airbus A319 aircraft.

United also plans to add service with O’Hare sometime in June “based on pilot and aircraft availability.”

Alaska plans to add a daily service to San Diego starting June 17.

Delta Airlines, which ended its service between Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City last July due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has not announced if or when flights will resume. Before the pandemic, the airline offered three daily flights between the two cities.

Delta “still says they plan to come back,” Zachrisson said, but has not provided details.

Airline passenger traffic crashed in 2020 due to COVID-19, but it is gradually coming back.

The Santa Barbara airport had its best year on record in 2019 – shunning just 1 million passengers – but expect a lot less this year, Zachrisson said.

“We are all in uncharted territory – the biggest fall ever, followed by a recovery that we think will take time, but no one is really sure,” she said. “Most industry analysts believe that the industry will not recover to 2019 levels until 2023.”

– Noozhawk Editor-in-Chief Tom Bolton can be reached at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk @BuienRadarNL and @BuienRadarNLConnect with Noozhawk on Facebook.