Southwest Airlines to stop flights to Bush airport (IAH) | khou.com

also Cozumel.

When I was flying out of Houston, the flights from IAH never seemed to be as conveniently timed as what I could get out of Hobby. I was the same distance from both airports, so it didn't affect me, but my sister will hate this.

Thanks for posting this we were flying to Vegas in September and I didn't see an email about them changing our flights to hobby. New flight times seem to be a bit better than our previous ones.

Sea Speed said:

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Thanks for posting this we were flying to Vegas in September and I didn't see an email about them changing our flights to hobby. New flight times seem to be a bit better than our previous ones.

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I was curious how they handled flights that were already booked. Seems like an airport change should have been highlighted in bold font. I would think Hobby would be a lot shorter drive for you than IAH.

I was scheduled to fly to Syracuse, NY in late August. SWA has canceled all service to Syracuse and sent me a new itinerary, but to Rochester, NY instead. If I wanted to go to Rochester, I would have bought a ticket to f'n Rochester.

The two are equidistant now that we moved to SETX. I actually liked having both available as options because what consumer doesn't like more choices?

Sea Speed said:

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The two are equidistant now that we moved to SETX. I actually liked having both available as options because what consumer doesn't like more choices?

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Didn't realize it was the same distance to both for you. I like having both options available, too. HOU is a bit further for me, but there are things about Hobby that I like better than IAH (parking being just one). If it's the difference between a direct flight and one with a stop, I'll take the direct 100% of the time. But when we flew to Fresno week before last, we were going to have a stop no matter what, so we flew out of IAH. My SOP had been to check both airports for options when flying SW.

Yep I always check both as well. Well, at least used to.

yeah, I think it's just about picking a horse if you travel a lot.

You get Economy Plus for free if Silver or higher, so the Basic Economy ends up being cheaper than SWA, and you get a better, reserved seat.

I used to just take SWA when they had a decent flight, since Hobby is closer and quicker, but then you end up having status on neither...which kind of sucks if you travel a lot.

Agreed. I don't travel for business, so it's hard to get enough leisure travel in to get status anywhere. And I am not loyal to any airline if I can get a cheaper fare booking with another.

IMO, the more competition the better, but United really has a lock on IAH. Their flight schedule is still not what it was pre-Covid. And many of the AA and Delta flights out of IAH are to places United doesn't go (or at least doesn't have reasonable flights to), so they aren't really competition.

We go to Bangor, ME to visit friends, and the only realistic option is AA out of IAH (United's options are terrible - long layovers (overnight) and often a change of airport (EWR to LGA)). So, AA has the monopoly on that destination, and they price the flights accordingly.

Status on SW isn't that big of a deal, though, since anyone can upgrade to a better boarding position and bags fly free.

Used to be, I could always get an A boarding position, if I checked in at the 24 hour mark. That's not as easy these days, but if we upgrade my BF to A1-15, he boards and picks a good seat and no one wants the middle seat next to him (except for me).

Diggity said:

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yeah, SWA always tends to get the ****ty gates at their non-hub airports. Not a great experience.

As far as pricing, these days I don't find SW to be any cheaper than United Basic Economy. If you have any status or cards on United, you can get the bags free (and possibly Economy Plus) so I don't really see much need to deal with SWA's crappy boarding situation.

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sw is significantly cheaper than united on my typical route to MAF. So much so I stopped flying united altogether. Sw also seems to get it and go. United pushes away and sits for half an hour.

Thanksgiving from HOU- Cozumel on SW was $700 per person. It's $2k on United. SWA rebooked me thru Cancun so it'll be an extra two hours to get there but $1300 per person saved is significant, especially when traveling with a family. I'm in Cozumel 3-4 times per year so this definitely sucks for me.

TXTransplant said:

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Agreed. I don't travel for business, so it's hard to get enough leisure travel in to get status anywhere. And I am not loyal to any airline if I can get a cheaper fare booking with another.

IMO, the more competition the better, but United really has a lock on IAH. Their flight schedule is still not what it was pre-Covid. And many of the AA and Delta flights out of IAH are to places United doesn't go (or at least doesn't have reasonable flights to), so they aren't really competition.

We go to Bangor, ME to visit friends, and the only realistic option is AA out of IAH (United's options are terrible - long layovers (overnight) and often a change of airport (EWR to LGA)). So, AA has the monopoly on that destination, and they price the flights accordingly.

Status on SW isn't that big of a deal, though, since anyone can upgrade to a better boarding position and bags fly free.

Used to be, I could always get an A boarding position, if I checked in at the 24 hour mark. That's not as easy these days, but if we upgrade my BF to A1-15, he boards and picks a good seat and no one wants the middle seat next to him (except for me).

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If you are willing to drive a couple of hours to an airport, the United flights out of Austin or San Antonio connecting through IAH are generally quite a bit cheaper than non-stops out of IAH to the same destination.

I have noticed this, and it irritates me to no end. Airline pricing makes absolutely no sense to me. My BF was booking business travel for his company a couple of weeks ago, and McAllen to San Fran on United (through IAH) was several hundred dollars cheaper than IAH to San Fran on the same flight.

I'm going to Montreal and Quebec in a couple of weeks and flights to Montreal were cheaper out of Austin and Dallas than Houston. It wasn't enough of a difference to entice me to drive 3 extra hours each way to Austin, though (especially since I would have had to go the night before and get a hotel). I was actually going to drive from Montreal to Quebec, but booking a flight to Quebec (through Montreal, on the exact same flight) was a little cheaper, so I did that instead. Another absurdity of airline pricing.

United loves to screw over their hub city passengers by pricing the non stops where they are the only non stop option absurdly high. The flights from places like Austin and San Antonio, they know they are competing against other airlines with 1-stop options from those cities, so their pricing has to come down to be competitive. I routinely see flights from Austin to places I am going that are $200-300 cheaper than the same flight booked out of IAH, even though the Austin flight is connecting to the same plane in Houston.

Airlines learned that customers are willing to pay a premium to avoid having to connect and transfer so they charge accordingly. So it definitely doesn't save us money to have a hub location in town. Its just more of a convenience so that there are more direct flight options.

That's the interesting thing about Southwest…the trips with no stop are almost always cheaper than those with a layover somewhere (assuming a nonstop option is available). At least that's been my experience.

Different pricing model. SW knows that having you take up seats on two flights when they could get you there on one costs them extra money that they cant entirely make up with the fare difference. United's hub and spoke doesnt put them in that position as often so they are purely pricing based on where they do or dont have direct competition for the nonstop route. On legs without direct competition for the nonstop, united will gladly screw you over if they can.

UA direct flights out of IAH are also typically cheaper than those with layovers.

I typically book airfare 8-24 hours before a flight and rarely have a one way ticket exceeding $550. IAH-ORD with a 30 hour notice was $320 for a fully refundable ticket.

I feel like United pricing is inconsistent, however like I said above, I travel more for leisure, so I'm sure that affects the prices I see. Sometimes their nonstops are VERY expensive. This was the case when I was pricing flights to Europe through Frankfurt last year. The United flight was more than double the cost of the Lufthansa flight (also nonstop) that United code shares.

Other times, the nonstops are expensive and the flights with stops have such a ridiculous itinerary that no one would ever book them (overnight layovers, change of airports, and/or two stops).

I actually feel like, considering the population of Houston, the options for flights and nonstop flights are not very good - especially to the East Coast and areas in Europe that aren't Frankfurt/Munich. This has been something I've observed since Covid.

As the poster above said, United really does not have any competition at Bush. Southwest gave them a decent run on select routes, but now we are losing that option. The routes I pick up on AA are because there is no reasonable option on United. I don't think I've ever flown on Delta out of IAH, and when I price flights it's almost never an option.

Spirit comes up as an option a lot when I use Google flights, but I have never and will never fly Spirit.

I'm guessing our United European direct flights are lacking because we have to fly past 2-3 much larger United hubs to get to Europe and the demand just hasnt been there to justify multiple flights to Paris and London in the same day. Especially with non-codeshare partners in Air France, British Airways, and KLM having direct flights to Houston, we actually have several options for getting to Europe. They just are rarely with flights that earn United miles.

Houston is United's latin america primary hub so for flights down to, Mexico, central and south america will result in the east and west coast flyers being routed through Houston. Its also why United was PISSED when the city of Houston built an international terminal for Southwest to fly to latin america and the Caribbean.

Did the Air France direct flight to Paris get suspended for a while? I know it's back now, as I had a fare alert set up thinking I wanted to take a trip to the French countryside. Fares were very high.

Seems like IAH used to also have nonstops to Iceland and Norway that have also disappeared.

I've flown KLM to Amsterdam (to get to Rome), and I actually really liked that option. I haven't flown it again because I couldn't get from Amsterdam to where I wanted to go. Haven't flown BA to London or been able to use it as a connection.

I think the Norway direct flights come and go based on how active the drilling is going on in the Norwegian North Sea. I remember there were direct flights to Bergen 10 years ago.

Just saw a news story that this is related to Boeing delays in delivering new planes because of government mandated production limits to ensure QC.

Southwest expected 46 planes this year but will only get 20. United expected 101 or 110, can't recall but several of the airlines are getting leas than half of their anticipated deliveries.

Silvy said:

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UA direct flights out of IAH are also typically cheaper than those with layovers.

I typically book airfare 8-24 hours before a flight and rarely have a one way ticket exceeding $550. IAH-ORD with a 30 hour notice was $320 for a fully refundable ticket.

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If you can afford to take a chance on the flights selling out before you book at the last minute you can get some good deals that way as they try to fill up the plane at the last minute. But if you log on to book 24 hrs out and the flight is full you are screwed.

It's not that I'm opting to wait that long prior to travel, that's generally how much notice I have before I need to travel. I don't think I've ever been delayed heading to/from a job due to flights being sold out.

Silvy said:

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It's not that I'm opting to wait that long prior to travel, that's generally how much notice I have before I need to travel. I don't think I've ever been delayed heading to/from a job due to flights being sold out.

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For weekday work travel I am not surprised to hear that. I sometimes only have a couple of days' notice also. Probably not a great weekend strategy for vacation destinations.

I wonder if them going hard for all the govt GSA city pair contracts is leading to this. Hopefully they give up a bunch of the contracts back to the legacy carriers for FY25