Southwest Offers New Destinations in Costa Rica
Southwest Airlines plans to put new routes into Mexico, Belize and Costa Rica. The new routes could be up and flying as early as October 2015.
Southwest will operate one route to Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) in Alajuela, Costa Rica, out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) as of March 7th, 2015, tentatively. The new construction of a 156 million dollar concourse for international travelers at the William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) will make more routes into Latin America possible. The concourse will serve flights to Mexico, Belize and Costa Rica by the fall of 2015 if there aren’t any delays in construction.
Southwest began flying to international destinations as of July 1st, 2014, and continues to expand its inventory of foreign termini as it merges its partner program Airtran Airways. Costa Rica will be the first destination that was not merged from Airtran, and will also represent the first place that Southwest has flown to beyond Mexico and the Caribbean. The flight from Baltimore to Costa Rica is going to be the longest international flight for Southwest at 2,070 miles (3331 kilometers), as well.
Southwest operates flights to Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Bahamas and Jamaica out of Houston currently, and more than 100 million customers fly with the Dallas based company every year.
With the ever growing numbers of visitors to Costa Rica each year, new routes mean more travelers and more attention for Costa Rica. Costa Rica continues to garner more and more international interest, and Southwest is one of the newest to come to the forefront of interested parties.