Southwest Airlines plans to add service at O’Hare next year

The airline has flown out of Midway Airport since 1985 and employs 4,800 Chicago-based workers.

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A Southwest Airlines jet at Midway Airport.

Southwest Airlines intends to begin flying out of O’Hare Airport by the middle of 2021.

Sun-Times file

Southwest Airlines intends to begin flying out of O’Hare Airport by the middle of 2021, the airline announced Monday.

The airline is in the early stages of securing gate locations, space, flight schedules and prices at O’Hare. The expansion won’t cause any changes in service at Midway, which is among Southwest’s busiest airports, Southwest representative Dan Landson said.

Southwest has flown out of Midway Airport since 1985 and has more than 4,800 Chicago-based employees. Adding service at O’Hare will not necessarily mean hiring more employees, Landson said.

Despite Southwest dropping 90,000 flights across the country in November and December, some experts believe this is a potentially smart move for the airline that will benefit Chicago.

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“To continue to be relevant in the Chicago market, Southwest had to do this to serve Chicago’s needs,” said Deborah Meehan, president of the Meehan Aviation Group, a consulting firm specializing in aviation economics and policy. “So the move doesn’t surprise me. It would have surprised me more if they had decided to pull out of airports, even as the pandemic continues.”

Southwest’s emphasis on domestic travel is serving it well during the pandemic, said Burkett Huey, an equity analyst at Morningstar who covers commercial aerospace.

“Southwest is truly one of the best, if not the best, positioned airlines right now because they’ve focused on leisure travel rather than business travel and domestic rather than international. That helps them mitigate a lot of harm with this move,” Huey said.

However, domestic air travel in 2021 is expected to be down more than 30% from 2019, according to Fitch Ratings — a reason for concern, according to Joseph Schwieterman, professor in the school of public service at DePaul University.

“No doubt this makes Wall Street nervous, and it should be making others nervous as well. Expanding at a time when the pace of recovery is so uncertain has some significant risk,” Schwieterman said.

“But we can only trust Southwest’s optimism and hope they continue their expansion while protecting their large national and local workforce.”

Andrea Butler, who lives in the northwest suburbs and loves to travel, was thrilled by the news.

“I think it’s awesome. I think it’s amazing. Literally, the only reason I ever go to Midway is to fly Southwest,” said Butler, 42, who was laid off from her job at a logistics firm in August and is now self employed.

“Southwest is one of the airlines I always look at first because of their prices. But getting to Midway has always been a pain in the a— for me,” she said. “I have a car that’s 20 years old, I have no family in Chicago, and Uber is expensive.”

Amanda Peters, 40, of south suburban New Lenox, is a loyal Southwest customer who prefers Midway and imagines she’ll always prefer Midway — but she isn’t counting out making the trip north.

“I’ll be interested to see how extensive their service will be and where they’ll be flying, but I would much prefer to fly out of Midway. It’s a convenience thing,” said Peters, who works in marketing and traveled regularly before the pandemic.

Contributing: Mitch Dudek

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