Southwest expansion boosts Vegas, but Costa Rica flight bumped

Southwest Airlines announced an expansion that will boost flight activity at Harry Reid International Airport, adding more frequencies on current Las Vegas routes and introducing several new city pairs. The airline, which is the busiest carrier at the airport, said it will vary frequencies and days of service between Reid and Boston, Miami, Philadelphia and Knoxville, Tennessee. Additional frequencies will also be added on routes to and from Dallas and Austin, Texas; Orlando; Detroit; New York’s LaGuardia Airport; Pensacola, Florida; and the Colorado mountain towns of Steamboat Springs and Telluride. At the same time, Southwest confirmed it is dropping the Las Vegas–San Jose, Costa Rica service before the first flight ever operated. The route, first announced in February as the carrier’s inaugural international “redeye” flight—scheduled to depart late at night and arrive in the early‑morning hours—has been removed from the schedule. In an email, a Southwest representative said the primary reason for the cancellation is recent high fuel costs and a decision to deploy aircraft in the most efficient manner possible. The representative’s statement read: “A redeye cognition successful an planetary marketplace fundamentally takes a afloat level disconnected the committee for different ops … since it volition beryllium sitting connected the crushed for rather immoderate clip successful Costa Rica,” the email said. The Costa Rica flight was intended to be among Southwest’s first international routes, complementing new services to Cancun, San Jose del Cabo and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It had been slated to debut in October.