New flights to Texas, Southern California coming to Boise Airport starting next summer
One of the Boise Airport’s primary commercial airlines is relaunching nonstop flights to the Lone Star State’s largest metro area, as well as a new route to compete for air travelers to Southern California.
In June, Southwest Airlines will bring back its seasonal route between Dallas Love Field and the Treasure Valley. The flight’s return next summer is the first time the airline has offered direct service to its headquarters in Dallas since August 2021, Chris Perry, a Southwest spokesperson, told the Idaho Statesman.
The Dallas route will fly once a week. During the nonstop flight’s one prior summer in Boise, Southwest operated it every day but Saturday.
“We’re excited to see Southwest expand its network of flights in Boise, opening up greater air service possibilities for our passengers — including the return of weekend service to Dallas Love Field, a well-connected and important operating base for Southwest,” Rebecca Hupp, director of the Boise Airport, said in a statement to the Statesman.
American Airlines continues to provide three nonstop trips between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Boise every day.
Also in June, Southwest will go head to head with Avelo Airlines and Alaska Airlines when it introduces daily service between Boise and Burbank, California. Avelo and Alaska each launched the nonstop flight in and out of Boise in May 2022, but with less frequency.
Avelo offers twice-weekly flights, plus a third round trip for peak travel periods around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Alaska’s schedule showed four trips per week to Hollywood Burbank Airport in Los Angeles County.
Southwest’s flight to Burbank begins June 4, while trips back and forth from Dallas Love Field will start June 8 and fly on Saturdays only. Advanced bookings for both flights are currently available at the airline’s website into August 2024.
Southwest also will add another flight between Boise and Denver on Sundays starting in November as part of overall network review to maximize passenger options, Perry said. The addition brings the airline up to three daily flights to and from Denver through April 2024.
“We have recently been optimizing our schedules during the week — pulling back some Tuesday/Wednesday flying, as those are traditionally lighter days — to better sync capacity/demand,” Perry said by email. “With that service to Denver … our customers in Boise have one-stop service to many of the 121 airports Southwest serves, on top of the nonstop service we offer at BOI.”
Earlier this month, Southwest began its new Boise nonstop route to Long Beach, California. The new round-trip flight on Saturdays and Sundays ends this Saturday, before returning with Sunday-only service starting Jan. 7.
Southwest’s revised 2024 schedule, including the additions of flights to Dallas and Burbank, brings the Boise Airport up to 26 nonstop destinations. It also further solidifies Southwest as the airport’s No. 2 air carrier behind only Alaska. Southwest will operate direct routes to 11 destinations compared to 15 for Alaska.
Sun Country Airlines also joins the growing list of air carriers at the regional air hub when it debuts its twice-weekly summer seasonal service to Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Statesman previously reported. The low-cost airline will become the ninth commercial airline in Boise and will compete with Delta Air Lines, which offers twice-daily flights to the Twin Cities.
Through September, the Boise Airport remains well on pace to smash its existing annual passenger record.
More than 3.5 million passengers have passed through the airport so far this year. The total represents a 7.4% uptick from last year, when the airport set its all-time high of nearly 4.5 million passengers.
At its current pace, and ahead of the busy year-end holiday travel season, the Boise Airport is on target to surpass 4.8 million annual passengers.
