Southwest adds wine country airport as California competition heats up

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Southwest Airlines has tapped a small airport serving California wine country as its newest destination.

The flights to Santa Rosa’s Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport (STS) in Northern California will begin April 7 and come amid an intensifying turf war in the Golden State.

Southwest will fly four routes from Santa Rosa, including daily service to both San Diego and Las Vegas. Flights to Burbank will operate five times per week, while the Denver service will be Saturday only.

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STS sits about 60 miles north of San Francisco in Sonoma County and next to Napa County — two of California’s best-known wine regions.

Southwest’s arrival will give Santa Rosa three carriers. Alaska Airlines, the busiest carrier at STS, flies eight routes from the airport, while American Airlines offers two.

Santa Rosa will be Southwest’s 14th destination in California, a state Southwest has long enjoyed a strong presence. But the carrier faces new competitive pressures there, particularly from Alaska Airlines’ rapid growth in San Diego and from carriers trying to fill the void in Burbank from the impending exit of budget carrier Avelo.

Competition at STS revved into high gear in April 2021 with the arrival of startup Avelo, which eventually flew as many as eight routes from STS. That drew a competitive response from several airlines in the West, including from Alaska, at STS.

But Avelo announced in July that it would abandon its entire West Coast operation, prompting a number of carriers to unveil routes backfilling service that it had offered from numerous airports – including STS and the Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) near Los Angeles.

Now Southwest is picking up two of the STS routes being left by Avelo: Las Vegas and Burbank. Southwest will compete with Alaska on both routes, as well as to Alaska’s fast-growing operation in San Diego.

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Southwest referenced the competitive California aviation market in announcing STS as its newest destination.

“Adding Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport to our route map provides more access to California’s famed Wine Country for our Customers and further solidifies our yearslong commitment to California,” Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s chief operating officer, said in a statement.

“Southwest offers, without regional carriers, more intra-California service than any other airline. It also leads in available seats, daily departures, and proudly carries the most passengers in the Golden State,” Southwest added in the statement – though excluding regional affiliates of its rivals dramatically undercounts their market share.

More broadly, the addition of STS continues a recent expansion spree by Southwest. With the new destination, the airline has now announced four new destinations in 2025 after not adding any during the previous four years. The other new cities announced this year are Knoxville, Tennessee; St. Thomas in United States Virgin Islands; and the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.

At least one more appears to be on the way, with Southwest saying it “intends to moor another new destination to its route map soon.”

Meanwhile, for Southwest’s new California city, it remains to be seen if – or how – rivals might respond there. Stay tuned …

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