Does SWA ever add flights?

[luvgoing2disney]

We are flying SWA to WDW on November 10. I had been watching for the announcement of the November dates and expected an early flight in the 6:30 range. We've flown this before and SWA had in for the late October flights. However when the flights were posted last week the earliest was 9:30. I've never had this come up before so wondered if they might add the earlier flight as the date gets closer. Also they do add and we are able to switch to the earlier one, would that affect our Early Bird loading status?

 

[DebbieB]

We are flying SWA to WDW on November 10. I had been watching for the announcement of the November dates and expected an early flight in the 6:30 range. We've flown this before and SWA had in for the late October flights. However when the flights were posted last week the earliest was 9:30. I've never had this come up before so wondered if they might add the earlier flight as the date gets closer. Also they do add and we are able to switch to the earlier one, would that affect our Early Bird loading status?

Very unlikely. SW rarely changes the schedule once released.

 

[imagineer52]

Agreed with PP. Southwest is known for posting their schedule, and sticking to it, unlike the legacy airlines. Of course there may be very rare exceptions, but what you see it what you get.

 

[loveswdw]

I've read several blog posts about SWA new reservation system (Amadeus) which just came online in May. Supposedly, the new system is a lot more flexible. Here's what The Points Guy says about flight schedules with the new system. So just watch your flights.

More Flexible Schedules


Currently, Southwest only has two sets of flight schedules: one for Saturday and the other for Sunday-Friday. Say the airline wanted to add another flight on a route that always sells out on Friday night. Under the current system, Southwest would have to add a flight at the same time on Sunday-Thursday just to add this one flight on Friday. That’s going away with the new system. Southwest will have a lot more flexibility in its flight schedules.


This is a double-edged sword for travelers. While Southwest might start offering additional flights or making positive tweaks to the flight schedule, the carrier might also pull that flight you can currently count on to be empty.


Another schedule quirk: The current Southwest reservation system doesn’t allow red-eye flights. You can expect these flights to be introduced once the new reservation system is in place.

 

[DebbieB]

Keep in mind, to add a flight they need to have an additional plane or cancel another flight to move the plane. So it's not a simple as "this flight sold out so let's add another".