Southwest Airlines is thinking about extending its workday.
The carrier, at present, does not offer any red-eye flights to its passengers, but in an interview with the Dallas Morning News, the carrier’s CEO says it plans to in the future, though he stopped short of giving a timeline for the overnight flights.
“It’s a logical evolution for us,” said CEO Bob Jordan. “We have the aircraft, it’s a great way to use an asset that you already have and use it more productively which means more hours in the day. So, we will be doing red-eyes.”
Red-eye flights, which generally depart in the late hours of the evening and land (often on the other side of the country) the next mornings, tend to be notable cheaper than flights during peak hours. They’re popular with some business travelers, who can get a full day’s worth of work in before heading home, without having to spend another night on the road.
Jordan said he believed the idea would work in “certain markets,” but also noted the idea of launching that service was still very early and needed more work before it goes into effect.
Southwest’s current focus is on the looming holiday travel season. Nearly half of the country is expected to travel between Thanksgiving and mid-January. And, last year, the holidays were a nightmare for the carrier, with thousands of passengers stranded due to operational problems. All totaled, nearly 17,000 flights were cancelled, leaving people stranded on and around Christmas. That chaos resulted in a quarterly loss and an $825 million hit.
