The low-cost airline has served Midway Airport since 1985, but never at North Side Airport.
“I booked the tickets and had to look at O’Hare twice,” said Colin Uthe, a passenger at Southwest Airlines.
Travelers can now choose from 16 daily flights to Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Nashville and Phoenix. Orlando will be added as a weekend destination starting in March.
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“It is a long journey, but we are excited to get to North Chicago,” said Dave Harvey, vice president, Southwest Airlines.
Harvey hopes the expansion will help Southwest Airlines’ businesses that were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 forced Southwest Airlines to cancel nearly 40% of its daily flights last spring.
“No one knew the depth and duration of COVID’s impact on the industry,” said Harvey.
Harvey said the global pandemic is also the reason why O’Hare’s launch on Sunday is possible.
With air travel plummeting, Southwest Airlines said it has secured access to the newly available gate at International Terminal 5.
“There are a lot of great corporate and government businesses in North Chicago, and some of these travelers are not willing to drive to Midway, so we want to be just around the corner and serve the airport of their choice,” Harvey said.
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Southwest Airlines saw its industry starting to recover, which is driven by rising demand as more parts of the country reopen.
“There have been a lot of shelters at the site. It’s encouraging, some of these states, literally just in the last week or two, are starting to open things up again,” said Harvey.
In addition to COVID-19, customers may also be concerned about Southwest Airlines bringing the Boeing 737 MAX plane back on March 11. The 737 MAX fleet was landed around the world almost two years ago, after two separate accidents killed 346 people on board. Southwest said it is implementing flexible policies to make passengers as comfortable as possible when issued on these planes.
“It’s great to see a company just being adaptable and rolling with the punches and making the best of situations,” said Uthe.
The expansion of O’Hare Airport remains just a fraction of the approximately 250 Southwest Airline flights leaving Midway Airport each day. Southwest Airlines employs more than 5,000 employees in Chicago. Eighty employees will be working on the new operation. Half of these employees moved from Midway, while others were transferred from other Southwest hubs. The airline said Chicago’s South Side airport will always be an “anchor” for the company.
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