Business & Tech

Southwest To Discontinue Direct Flights to LaGuardia

New schedule takes effect Jan. 5, 2013.

Southwest announced its plans this week to discontinue service to New York’s LaGuardia Airport out of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, effective Jan. 5, reported The Baltimore Sun

Currently, the airline runs 20 flights from BWI to LaGuardia each week.

The shift will enable Southwest to “enhance access” to its Midwestern clientele, according to The Baltimore Sun.

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Specifically, the airline will ramp up service in Tennessee. In Nashville—where Southwest passengers have had to connect through other cities to get to New York—the airline will add 12 total nonstop flights weekly to LaGuardia starting Jan. 6, reports The Tennessean.

A spokesman for BWI told The Baltimore Sun that he was confident “Southwest is going to grow service out of BWI in the future.”

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Earlier this year,  at the airport. The Boeing 800-series based out of BWI will allow more passengers to take longer flights.

This year, the airline reportedly added several flights out of BWI through Air Tran, which merged with Southwest in 2011. In 2012, Air Tran added flights from BWI to Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans and San Francisco, according to its blog.

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