Southwest Airlines launches to Central America and flies new Caribbean route

Southwest Airlines inaugurated two international routes Saturday that brought new long-haul service for customers using two of the carrier's growing gateways, Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and William P. Hobby Airport in Houston. Each of the new routes is longer than 2,000 miles each-way and marks historic milestones for the carrier both by connecting Central America to the Southwest network of destinations and by offering its longest-ever nonstop scheduled service from any of Southwest's Texas Triangle of original cities of Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston.

Beginning Saturday, Southwest Airlines operates nonstop service between San Jose, Costa Rica, and Baltimore/Washington on a once daily basis, and Aruba and Houston seasonally, once every Saturday through Aug. 8.

At Houston's Hobby Airport, Southwest employees celebrated the first Aruba-bound morning departure. This is the first-ever international flying offered from Houston Hobby. This October, Southwest is scheduled to complete the construction of a $156 million international terminal project which will give Houstonians and Southwest customers from across the network access to more international destinations.

"This is just the beginning of a very big 2015 for our Houston employees and customers with an additional six destinations across three countries coming online at Hobby later this year,” said Teresa Laraba, Southwest's Senior Vice President of Customers.

Southwest Airlines goes international

U.S.-based Southwest Airlines launched international service on Tuesday by inaugurating flights to Caribbean destinations from three of its U.S. gateway cities.

Southwest Airlines' first international departure, Flight 1804 from Baltimore/Washington to Oranjestad, Aruba, departed ontime at 8:30 a.m. EDT, closely followed by Southwest Flight 906 to Montego Bay, Jamaica, where its first-ever scheduled international arrival was planned for just after 11 a.m. EDT. A midday flight from Baltimore/Washington to Nassau/Paradise Island also brings Southwest Airlines' legendary customer service to The Bahamas.

Customers on the carrier's inaugural international flights from Baltimore/Washington joined those in two other gateway cities of Atlanta, and Orlando who celebrated alongside employees with commemorative beach balls, snorkels and masks.

Southwest operates the largest fleet of Boeing aircraft in the world to serve 93 destinations in 40 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and five near-international countries. Some flights are operated by wholly owned subsidiary AirTran Airways.

JetSuite expands service to the Caribbean

JetSuite, a private jet charter company headquartered in Irvine, Calif., has expanded service to include non-stop flights to popular locations in the Caribbean just in time for the holiday travel season.

Passengers can now fly non-stop from the east coast to St. Maarten, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, as well as Nassau and Eleuthera in The Bahamas on the JetSuite Edition Citation CJ3. These six-passenger aircraft can fly up to 2,000 miles, and offer free onboard WiFi, increased interior comfort and speeds up to 480 miles per hour.

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