By Michael Garko, In Airline News
Bill Owen gave details about Southwest Airline’s launch plans for its new Boeing 737-800 aircraft coming into service in the “Nuts about Southwest” blog.
Courtesy Boeing
The world’s largest low-cost carrier will begin blending in Boeing 737-800s into its fleet starting April 11. The 175-seat aircraft has a thirty percent larger capacity than current largest aircraft, the Boeing 737-700.
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The new -800 aircraft will come equipped with Boeing’s new “Sky Interior”, which Owen describes as having “larger window treatments, cool variable lighting, and larger overhead bins for a little change to your flying experience.”
Southwest will launch with two -800 aircraft that will be “overnighting at Chicago Midway and Baltimore/Washington and flying to and from Florida”. The February 2 post goes on to say the airline expects to receive two more -800 aircraft on each, April 22 and May 13. By August, there are scheduled to be over 20 of the -800 series aircraft “flying longer-haul routes like between Chicago Midway and the West Coast, between Baltimore/Washington and California, and between Florida and Las Vegas.”
The first Southwest Boeing 737-800 revenue flight will be flight 1717 departing Chicago Midway to Ft. Lauderdale, leaving Wednesday, April 11 at 7:00 a.m. CST.
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