Southwest Airlines just made a big change in Florida affecting Fort Lauderdale airport

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport will continue to grow and double-down on efforts to become a bigger global hub after suffering a recent setback, airport officials said on Friday.

Southwest Airlines said last week it would move most of its international flights from FLL to Orlando International Airport in June. The carrier averages six to nine daily international departures, depending on the season, to seven destinations. The airline’s domestic flights aren’t affected.

Starting June 4, 2024, the Dallas-headquartered airline will operate daily service between Orlando and Cancun; Grand Cayman; Nassau; Providenciales, Turks and Caicos; Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; and San José, Costa Rica. The new flights first need government approvals.

Until then, Southwest will continue to fly those routes at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood. A search on Friday for Southwest flights on its website found available non-stop flights between each of those cities and Fort Lauderdale in the first half of February and none in the first half of July, indicating the change.

Why is Southwest shifting to Orlando?

Southwest wants to better match the carrier’s schedule to current travel patterns and get more out of the nearly 140 daily departures it already has from Orlando, a company executive said during its third quarter earnings call last week.

“This will offer better connectivity in our domestic network,” said Andrew M. Watterson, chief operating officer of Southwest, during the Oct. 26 earnings.

Orlando’s airport serves Florida’s biggest theme parks in Central Florida, including Universal and Walt Disney World. The airport also is the site of a new Brightline station with trains that run to and from South Florida several times a day.

Impact on Fort Lauderdale airport

Southwest’s shift to Orlando is a rare loss of service for the growing Broward County airport.

“While FLL enjoys a very healthy international air service portfolio, it is always disappointing to lose any international service,” said Arlene Satchell, public information officer for the Broward County Aviation Department.

Still, airport leaders plan to keep vying for Southwest’s business.

The Aviation Department for Broward County “plans to double its efforts to regain these service routes and attract others,” Satchell said. In addition, “we will continue to work with and encourage Southwest to inaugurate/reinstate international flight activity in the future.”

So far this year, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport has served 23.7 million passengers through August, 11.1% more than during the same period in 2022. International visitors, while still relatively small at 5.3 million, were up 23.1% from the same period one year earlier. Domestic passengers have increased 8% to 18.4 million.

Total arrivals and departures have also grown by 8.2% to 23,609 in the first eight months of this year.

Growth for FLL

In October, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $404 million fifth airline terminal, covering 230,000 square feet and expected to be finished in 2026. That terminal will have five airline passenger gates for domestic flights, increasing the airport’s total to 71 gates, and be able to handle 4 million to 5 million more passengers. JetBlue is managing construction of the terminal on behalf of Broward County.

“The desire to grow, particularly by JetBlue and Spirit, ... was the impetus for why we embarked on it,” said Mark E. Gale, CEO of the Broward County Aviation Department, said in an interview with the Miami Herald on Oct. 9 before the groundbreaking.

Southwest has been an important carrier at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport, holding the third largest market share at 12.9% through August of this year behind Spirit and JetBlue.

Yet it has fallen in recent years. In January, it was 14.1%. Last August, Southwest’s market share was 14.7%. It was 20% in August 2019, before the pandemic.

Only about 16% of Southwest’s total passengers at Fort Lauderdale have been international.

Additionally, other carriers at Fort Lauderdale serve several Southwest destinations. JetBlue and Spirit fly to Cancun. JetBlue goes to Grand Cayman, and Bahamas Air, Silver and Western Air serve Nassau. JetBlue and Spirit each fly to Punta Cana.

Advantages in Orlando for airline

Southwest though sees plenty to gain by shifting to Orlando. Watterson, its chief operating officer, explained in the earnings call.

The ability to fill up the carrier’s new international routes depends on where it departs from: it needs to be a place that has extensive connectivity throughout the U.S. The international destinations “are modest-sized markets that require a decent amount of connectivity to fill them up,” said the executive.

Orlando also has many more northbound flights for Southwest than Fort Lauderdale.

“The combination of the local market plus allowing us to access our big customer bases on the Upper Midwest and Northeast,” was one reason for the shift, Watterson said.

Southwest also has many crew members who live in or near Orlando, and so the carrier can also lower expenses.

For “revenue and costs,” he said, “it made more sense for our international anchor in the Southeast to be Orlando.”