Just excitement!

[littleangie]

sorry I know this really isn't about budgets or anything but needed somewhere to express my excitement. Today my local airport announced that southwest will start flying out of Cincinnati! I'm so excited because that means cheaper airfare, no bag fees (2 free checked bags) and no cost for choosing seats. The only other "cheap" choice we had was frontier but the flights never left before 7pm. So I am so excited for upcoming trip now.

 

[dclpluto]

sorry I know this really isn't about budgets or anything but needed somewhere to express my excitement. Today my local airport announced that southwest will start flying out of Cincinnati! I'm so excited because that means cheaper airfare, no bag fees (2 free checked bags) and no cost for choosing seats. The only other "cheap" choice we had was frontier but the flights never left before 7pm. So I am so excited for upcoming trip now.

Nice Cincinnati has really high prices as you know. Maybe this will force lower fares on other air lines. Shame there will be no skyline served on the plane thou.

 

[runwad]

Umm, I just saw on twitter that Southwest is leaving Akron/Canton Airport in June, wonder if it's leaving us for you

 

[adisneyaunt]

Yippee for you.
Unfortunately for us, a while back they cut down then ultimately removed our ( local airport) non stop run Fla/ny
... it used to be so convenient... and to use my miles I now have to travel 1.5 hours to another airport for a non stop.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Southwest does not always have the cheapest fares and you cannot preselect seats. Of course they charge you $15 per person, per flight for EBCI. All US legacy airlines allow you to choose seats in advance for free, except for a few which offer a special fare which does not include advanced seat assignment.

 

[littleangie]

Umm, I just saw on twitter that Southwest is leaving Akron/Canton Airport in June, wonder if it's leaving us for you

I think they said that they were pulling out of Dayton, OH. i wish they didn't have to and could just add our airport.

Im sorry for the one that this affects negatively. I'm just excited because we have always drive down due to cost, except our last trip cause it was just me and DH.

But please know that i didn't want to upset anyone and if i did i am very sorry. I just thought that maybe you guys would understand where i was coming from.

 

[JessM]

I'm actually excited for this to and I'm in Maine haha. We have a few projects in Cincinnati and it's been a pain to get to cost wise and schedule wise. We've been driving up from Columbus but direct service from Cinn to BWI will be fabulous!

 

[crazycatstacy]

That excites me! I am in South Dakota but have a trip planned in October with my husband and our nephew. Our nephew recently moved to Cincinnati from Florida so we were going to drive to Cincinnati, pick him up, and then drive to Florida because the flights were crazy expensive!

 

[DisneyMandC]

I was so excited when Southwest came to RIC! DH and I got a great direct flight to Orlando for our Disneymoon with great timing (early AM arrival flight and late PM return flight). Unfortunately, they stopped doing the direct flight and you now have to layover in ATL, but I still really enjoy flying Southwest. People like to complain about the seating arrangements, which I can see if you have a family, but I think they have great customer service and always enjoy the in-flight humor.

 

[hoffman1]

I was excited about this too! We live in central KY and driving to CVG is a little closer to us than Louisville.

 

[kristenrice]

I was excited too when SWA (AirTran at the time) came to GRR. Our flights to MCO were always $400+ and if we wanted non-stop, we had to drive to Detroit, Flint or Chicago. Our flights in 2013 were about $250 R/T on SWA and they were non-stop. Now, the fares are about $375 and there are no non-stops. They got me all excited...I opened a SWA Visa card for the bonus miles, thinking we could start flying for under $300/person without having to drive across the state. That didn't last...in 2014, we had to drive to FNT to get non-stop. In 2015, we had to fly in to TPA to get non-stop. In 2016, we sucked it up and took a one-stop flight to MCO and a non-stop back into FNT.

SWA is still the cheapest out of GRR to MCO, but it's still about $350 now. Delta, United and American are all $500+...and nothing is non-stop.

 

[AndreaDM]

Umm, I just saw on twitter that Southwest is leaving Akron/Canton Airport in June, wonder if it's leaving us for you

I'm in the CAK area too, was soooo bummed to hear that.

 

[MichelleB]

We're in Cincinnati too! I was jumping for joy that Southwest is coming here. Now let's hope they make it non-stop since Dayton quit offering non-stop to MCO last year.

 

[kid-at-heart]

I was excited too when SWA (AirTran at the time) came to GRR. Our flights to MCO were always $400+ and if we wanted non-stop, we had to drive to Detroit, Flint or Chicago. Our flights in 2013 were about $250 R/T on SWA and they were non-stop. Now, the fares are about $375 and there are no non-stops. They got me all excited...I opened a SWA Visa card for the bonus miles, thinking we could start flying for under $300/person without having to drive across the state. That didn't last...in 2014, we had to drive to FNT to get non-stop. In 2015, we had to fly in to TPA to get non-stop. In 2016, we sucked it up and took a one-stop flight to MCO and a non-stop back into FNT.

SWA is still the cheapest out of GRR to MCO, but it's still about $350 now. Delta, United and American are all $500+...and nothing is non-stop.

Ditto, except that lately Delta has been cheaper than SW on most flights. We are in the Lansing area so can choose from DTW, LAN, FNT and GRR. Where is TPA? Never mind, you are referring to Tampa.

 

[MichelleB]

TPA is Tampa.

 

[kristenrice]

Ditto, except that lately Delta has been cheaper than SW on most flights. We are in the Lansing area so can choose from DTW, LAN, FNT and GRR. Where is TPA? Never mind, you are referring to Tampa.

For comparison, when we flew in to Tampa, we had an early morning (6:30am) flight. We landed in Tampa at 9am, grabbed our luggage and one-way rental car from Alamo which I paid $60 for from UnderCoverTourist, and drove to AKV. We arrived at the resort at 11am...which is not much longer than it would have taken on DME had we flown into MCO. We drove to Target, grabbed groceries and stopped for lunch on the way back. I dropped off the family and groceries at AKV and drove the car to the Car Care Center to return it. They offer a complimentary shuttle back to the resort and it was super easy. From the time I left AKV to the time I returned took 45 minutes. That included fueling and returning the car. All in all, it was a painless and affordable option that I will definitely consider in the future if the prices and times are reasonable. I will always return home from MCO since DME is just too convenient for me to pass up.

 

[ceecee]

We loved Southwest and they are leaving our airport...Dayton! We had so many free flights with the bonus miles and credit cards offers. Now there are no more direct flights to MCO from Dayton, we have Allegiant with super cheap flights but there are two flights per week and they fly into Sanford not MCO, so no magical express. Looks like we will be driving to Cincinnati or Columbus! Hopefully the parking is cheap at those airports.

 

[kristenrice]

I just looked at flights from Michigan (GRR, FNT and DTW) and there are NO non-stop flights on any day of the week for the days that they have open in August. On top of that, if you fly out of GRR, you can't get to Orlando before noon and even then, it's over $200 one way. My excitement over SWA coming to my airport has now dried up. I can only hope that the options improve a little before my fall flights are released, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

 

[MichelleB]

Looks like we will be driving to Cincinnati or Columbus! Hopefully the parking is cheap at those airports.

There are several off-site parking locations at CVG that are much less than the airport parking and they're painless to use. We always park off-site and take the shuttle and pay around $6-8 per day. If you want the info, just let me know and I'll ask my husband what the name of the place we normally park is.

 

[ceecee]

There are several off-site parking locations at CVG that are much less than the airport parking and they're painless to use. We always park off-site and take the shuttle and pay around $6-8 per day. If you want the info, just let me know and I'll ask my husband what the name of the place we normally park is.

Is that Cincinnati? Please let me know if you can and how far is it to the airport? Thanks