When Southwest Airlines swoops into Santa Barbara next week, it is expected to almost immediately become the dominant carrier in the local market.
A celebration is planned for Monday morning after the no-frills airline’s first Boeing 737 aircraft touches down in Santa Barbara, bringing the inaugural load of passengers from Las Vegas.
Southwest’s initial schedule calls for five daily nonstop flights — three to Vegas, and one each to Denver and Oakland.
“Right out of the gate, Southwest Airlines — if they fill their flights even 50% full — will take the dominant position in the Santa Barbara market,” Deanna Zachrisson, the Santa Barbara Airport’s business development manager, told Noozhawk.
But the other airlines serving Santa Barbara — United, American and Alaska — aren’t expected to remain in their seats, and are planning to add capacity and routes beginning in May and June, Zachrisson said.
“With Southwest’s current schedule, they will have around 40% of total available seats, a larger share than any other carrier,” Zachrisson said. “However, we expect the three other airlines to add capacity as air travel recovers, so it will be a bit in flux for a while.
“Being able to accommodate that kind of capacity required the airport to make some changes in the building.”
Southwest does not charge baggage fees, Zachrisson noted, and the airline warned airport officials that its passengers tend to bring “a lot more” luggage than other airlines, including large and bulky items such as surfboards, golf clubs, skis “and even kayaks.”
To accommodate that increase, the chute in the terminal’s baggage claim area was expanded to more than double its previous size, and a baggage-service office for Southwest was added.
Other upgrades that have been made include new computer equipment and boarding pass and baggage tag readers in the ticketing lobby, and expanded capacity at the Gate 5 podium to be able to board four flights at the ground boarding area simultaneously.
“In theory, depending upon aircraft type, we could accommodate eight planes on the ground at one time,” Zachrisson said.
While Southwest is settling into the market, the other airlines have plans of their own, she said:
» United will add a third daily nonstop flight to Denver beginning May 6. It also will resume its daily service to Los Angeles International Airport, which was suspended a year ago, with a single early morning flight.
» American is scheduled to begin weekend (Saturday and Sunday) nonstop service to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport beginning May 8, mostly likely using Airbus A319 aircraft.
» United also is looking to add service at O’Hare sometime in June “based on pilot and aircraft availability.”
» Alaska plans to add daily service to San Diego beginning June 17.
Delta Airlines, which suspended its service between Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City last July because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has not announced whether or when the flights will resume. Before the pandemic, the carrier was offering three daily flights between the two cities.
Delta “still says they are planning to come back,” Zachrisson said, but it has provided no details.
Airline passenger traffic crashed in 2020 because of COVID-19, but it has been gradually coming back.
The Santa Barbara Airport had its best year ever in 2019 — just shy of 1 million passengers — but is projecting far fewer this year, Zachrisson said.
“We are all in unchartered territory — the largest fall ever, followed by a recovery we believe will take time, but no one really knows for sure,” she said. “Most industry analysts believe the industry won’t recover to 2019 levels until 2023.”
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.