Southwest Airlines plans growth at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport

By Arlene Satchell, Sun Sentinel

Southwest Airlines is eager to expand at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, a senior executive says.

New domestic and international flights are likely when improvements to Terminal 1 are done in 2017-18, Dave Harvey, senior director network planning and performance, said in a telephone interview Monday.

Terminal 1 is undergoing a $150 million expansion that will add five additional international gates in Concourse A, which is expected to be completed in early 2017. Other improvements include a new security checkpoint and concessions hall connecting to the existing concourses as part of a $300 million modernization of Terminals 1, 2 and 3.

"When it's finished ... Southwest will be eager to go ahead and start" adding routes, Harvey said. "Fort Lauderdale is going to be well-positioned for growth. The future is really bright."

Southwest is expanding across the country, including 17 destinations from its home airport, Dallas Love Field. Nonstop service between Fort Lauderdale and Love Field will start Sunday.

The new route will operate twice daily, with flights departing Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport at 10:25 a.m. and 5:25 p.m. to Love Field, according to a flight schedule on Southwest.com.

"There's heavy demand for flights between the North Texas area and Fort Lauderdale," Harvey said.

Southwest inaugurated the first seven new destinations from Love Field on Oct. 13, the day that federal flight restrictions limiting the airport's reach expired.

In a third-quarter earnings statement last week, Southwest President and CEO Gary Kelly called the day "momentous," noting it took 34 years for the restrictions to be lifted.

Southwest (along with its subsidiary AirTran) is the No. 2 carrier at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood with 18.5 percent of passenger traffic this year through August, the latest airport data show. The top carrier is JetBlue Airways at 20.4 percent, and Spirit Airlines is No. 3 with 18.3 percent.

Southwest recently identified 40 to 50 destinations that offer room for it to expand nationwide, and its international flying represents only about 1 percent of its business today, Harvey noted.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood officials have said Southwest plans to add at least 25 daily international flights to the Caribbean and South America to the more than 70 domestic daily flights that it now operates from there.

Specific destinations have not been announced, but Fort Lauderdale could get international routes similar to those from other East Coast airports, Harvey said.

Those destinations include Cancún and Los Cabos, Mexico, and Montego Bay, Jamaica. The carrier recently announced plans to begin service from Baltimore to San Jose, Costa Rica, in March 2015, its first Central America destination.

asatchell@tribpub.com, 954-356-4209 or Twitter@TheSatchreport

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