Southwest Airlines’ decision to stop flying out of Bellingham International Airport (BLI) as of Aug. 4 is set to impact B.C. travellers - particularly those who fly to Las Vegas, the Bay Area or Denver.
Those are the three cities Southwest Airlines flies to daily out of BLI. Without those flights, there will be reduced capacity on those routes, potentially leading to higher prices for flights to those destinations from Vancouver.
The airline, which has flown out of BLI for about three years, is halting those three routes because it says it does not have enough planes and it is uncertain when Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA) will deliver new planes that it has ordered. Essentially, the airline is retiring planes faster than it is receiving new ones.
Boeing 737 Max 9 deliveries have slowed to a crawl because of regulatory pressure on the airplane manufacturer to heighten safety standards in the wake of incidents such as one in January, when a door flew off a Boeing plane mid-flight. That botch-up on an Alaska Airlines plane was later found to have happened in part because Boeing workers did not bolt the door to the aircraft frame.
Southwest Airlines accounted for about 40 per cent of the 641,056 passengers that flew into or out of BLI last year, the airport’s public affairs administrator Mike Hogan told BIV.
That translates into 256,422 people on Southwest Airlines’ three routes out of Bellingham.
A rough estimate is that about 50 per cent of the passengers who use BLI are Canadians, with most of those being British Columbians.
B.C. residents often drive across the border to BLI to catch flights because fares can be lower because there is a different fee structure for airlines in the U.S. and flights in the U.S. often cost less.
If other airlines do not increase frequency on those routes or start to use larger planes, there will be a sudden reduction in supply of seats available on those routes. That could cause prices to rise.
Allegiant plans to pick up some of the slack.
Hogan said Allegiant now flies between BLI and Oakland twice per week, and it plans to keep that frequency in place through the winter, unlike this year, when it reduced service on that route in the winter. Oakland is the Bay Area airport that Southwest uses for its flights out of BLI.
Allegiant also flies 11 times per week between Bellingham and Las Vegas, according to online booking sites.
“Allegiant has made no changes to provide additional service from BLI to Las Vegas,” Hogan said.
No other airline flies between BLI and Denver and no airline plans to pick up that route, he added.
Many flights now operate between Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and the Las Vegas, Bay Area and Denver metro areas.
Air Canada flies twice daily between YVR and Las Vegas, while WestJet flies once or twice daily. Flair Airlines also provides seasonal daily service, according to the Vancouver Airport Authority (VAA).
While no scheduled flights operate between YVR and Oakland, Air Canada and United each operate four daily flights between YVR and nearby San Francisco International Airport (SFO). WestJet and Flair offer flights during the summer season between YVR and SFO, with WestJet's frequency being once daily and Flair's being five to six times per week, the VAA added.
United Airlines and Air Canada each fly non-stop between YVR and Denver. United's service is up to four times daily during the summer while Air Canada flies the route twice daily, the VAA said.
BIV emailed Air Canada, WestJet and United to see if any of those airlines plan to respond to Southwest's pullout from BLI with any additional flights out of YVR.
"We do not have current plans to modify these frequencies," Air Canada spokeswoman Angela Mah said in an email.
WestJet spokeswoman Julia Brunet told BIV: "WestJet is constantly evaluating new network opportunities and plans its schedule where operationally and commercially viable, however at this time, we do not have any new destinations or network updates to announce."
Flair vice-president of revenue management and network planning Eric Tanner told BIV this morning that his airline's frequency to Las Vegas is set to rise 46 per cent in the October 2024 through February 2025 time period, compared with those months one year earlier. The airline in those months in 2023-2024 flew 65 times. It plans in 2024-2025 to fly 95 times.
Flair is also upping its frequency out of YVR to SFO to 93 planned flights in the October 2024 through February 2025 time period, up from 42 times in the same period one year earlier. That is a 121-per-cent increase.
Flair does not fly to Denver.
Tanner said the increase in frequencies is not in direct response to Southwest pulling out of Bellingham but rather demand from Canadian travellers wanting cheaper flights to those destinations out of Vancouver.
BIV has yet to receive a response from United.
Airlines plan no additional service out of Abbotsford International Airport (YXX), the airport’s general manager Parm Sidhu told BIV.
WestJet and Flair Airlines are the only two carriers that have regularly scheduled flights out of YXX, since Swoop dissolved last October.
Those airlines only fly domestic routes out of YXX.
