Southwest announces new international flights for Houston

Southwest Airlines announced plans Thursday for service to six new international destinations out of Houston Hobby Airport next year pending government approval.

The Dallas-based carrier, which partnered with the city of Houston to spend $156 million on a new international concourse, said it plans to add flights to Cancun, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos in Mexico, as well as San Jose, Costa Rica, and Belize City, Belize.

Southwest said it will begin selling tickets on those flights once it receives approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation, with service expected to begin in October.

The carrier plans to start flights to Aruba from Houston Hobby on March 7 even though the new concourse won’t be finished. Southwest is able to fly passengers in from Aruba without a customs facility in Houston since passengers can move through customs at a U.S. pre-clearance facility on the Caribbean island.

Southwest already flies to Cancun, Mexico City and Los Cabos from other U.S. airports. Belize, however, will be a new addition to Southwest’s network and the airline had previously announced it was adding San Jose and Puerto Vallarta.

“We’re looking at cities [where the] demand is heavily oriented toward the United States customer,” said Southwest’s chief executive Gary Kelly, speaking at a Wings Club luncheon in New York. “That will be a good start for us and our focus right now is Latin America.”

Most of Southwest’s increased capacity in 2015 comes from new flights added at the Houston airport and at Dallas Love Field, where the Wright Amendment restrictions were lifted two months ago. International flights are still prohibited at Love Field.

Kelly said he is happy with the performance of the 16 new long-haul destinations that Southwest added to Love Field this fall.

“Of all the new flights that we’ve added, the average load factor is about 90 percent,” Kelly said. Since Love Field is limited to only 20 gates, Kelly added, “I expect that we’re going to continue to run very full flights.”

Hunter Keay, an analyst with Wolfe Research, said the battle for passenger traffic in Dallas/Fort Worth has impacted airfares in the North Texas market.

“It also seems [American] and [Southwest] are engaged in an intense fare battle post-expiration of the Wright Amendment,” Keay told investors in a research note issues this week, noting that Spirit Airlines, which has a significant presence at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, has been affected by the fare war.

Shares of Southwest (ticker: LUV) rose 44 cents to close at $41.92 on Thursday.

This story was originally published December 11, 2014 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Southwest announces new international flights for Houston."