Southwest can add 15 more daily flights at JWA next year

Southwest Airlines can phase in up to 15 more daily flights out of John Wayne Airport next year, bringing the carrier’s total to 67, according to an annual plan approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors this week.

Each year, the airport and county officials allocate flights to the carriers that operate out of John Wayne to ensure that traffic stays within the airport’s strict limits, but also to give airlines an opportunity to adjust their service based on passenger counts and other factors.

Southwest was the only carrier to ask for additional flights for 2015, JWA spokeswoman Jenny Wedge said, though the plan also includes a standard provision potentially allowing for a new airline to start service from Orange County.

Of the 67 total daily Southwest flights anticipated by the end of next year, 28 will be Class A, meaning they will be counted as part of the airport’s maximum of 85 average daily passenger flight departures. Those typically travel longer distances and are the loudest types of flights.

The remaining 39 will be Class E flights, which travel shorter distances and are quieter.

This year, the airline is taking over two international flights operated by Southwest subsidiary AirTran. In August, AirTran flights to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, became Southwest flights. AirTran flights to Mexico City are to undergo the conversion Nov. 2.

Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins said the airline probably will use its expanded capacity to add flights to new destinations as well as popular existing destinations, but there are no concrete plans yet.

“We have precious slots and we have big plans. We’re pretty much everywhere we want to fly in the U.S,” he said, adding that the airline can now “start drawing new lines between very strong dots that are already on the map, and Orange County is definitely one of those.”

Hawkins couldn’t say whether one of those “new lines” would connect Orange County and Washington, D.C. — JWA’s “No. 1 unserved market,” according to airport Director Alan Murphy. But Hawkins did say that Southwest is the biggest carrier in D.C. and “we’re always very mindful of what people need.”

Overall, JWA estimates that the number of passengers traveling through its gates will grow from 9.2 million this year to 9.9 million by the end of 2015.

That’s still below the airport’s 10.8 million annual cap.