Fresno customers pleaded for Southwest for years. What are its first passengers saying?
Southwest Airlines’ inaugural flight from Fresno to Las Vegas on Sunday morning took off into an overcast sky at 11:34 a.m., with more than 75% of its seats filled with passengers excited about being aboard the first trip.
And except for some buffeting by high winds as the aircraft approached McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, the flight pretty much went off without a hitch, and passengers broke out in applause once the wheels touched the runway exactly one hour later, at 12:34 p.m.
Natalie Waer of Clovis said she and her husband were among those who booked the flight just because it represents Southwest’s first entry into the Fresno market.
“That was something we decided to do, to go on the inaugural flight,” she said. “And I do like Vegas.”
Waer, who moved to Clovis in the mid-1990s from Spokane, Washington, said she always questioned why Southwest wasn’t in the Fresno market already.
“I’m from Spokane, and Southwest has been there forever, and I was wondering when we were going to get that option” in Fresno, she said. “I know myself and a lot of members of the community were very excited when Southwest decided to come here.”
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Another passenger, Tiffany Young of Tulare, was heading to Las Vegas for a four-day birthday trip. Previously she’s flown to Las Vegas on Allegiant Air “because that’s the only flight that goes there.” That was going to be the plan this time, too, “until we found out that Southwest was flying, so we decided we wanted to try them.”
“They offer a little bit more than the other airlines, like two free bags, priority boarding, things like that,” she said.
Amid coronavirus optimism, flight feels ‘freeing’
Charles Shaheen of Fresno was heading to Las Vegas for a golf excursion, and for him the flight was one of the first he’s taken aside from car trips since the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s kind of freeing, really,” he said.
Beyond his golf trip, Shaheen said he expects Southwest to “give us more opportunities and different destinations that we’re able to take more direct flights to.”
“Hopefully they’re going to expand here,” he added. It would be a boon to Fresno, really.”
Future expansion will depend on how fully the flying public in Fresno and the surrounding Valley embrace the airline, said Adam Decaire, Southwest’s vice president of network planning. In that position, Decaire oversees development of the airline’s routes and how many flights are planned in different markets.
Fresno “right now is probably considered a small market” in the Southwest system, Decaire said. “But California is a much larger market, and we recognize that people choose different airports sometimes as they get in and out of the state.”
Decaire said the pandemic provided the airline with an opportunity to finally enter the Fresno market.
“We’ve got a lot of communities that we’d love to serve, and Fresno’s always been on our list of places that we wanted to get to. We’ve always been in love with California,” he said. “With the pandemic, we’ve got a lot of airplanes that we needed to get back in the air, and with this came an opportunity and Fresno is one of the first places we turned to. We wanted to start that up.”
Southwest spokesman: ‘Fresno is already welcoming us’
In these early stages of service, ticket sales through Fresno have met the airline’s expectations, Decaire said.
“Once you’re part of our family, we’re very committed to staying part of that,” he said when asked about Southwest’s long-term commitment to Fresno. “Now we do need Fresno to welcome us to the community; we want you to fly us, right? If nobody chooses to fly us, we’ll see what happens.
“But I believe that Fresno is already welcoming us,” Decaire said as he looked around at a nearly full boarding area at Fresno Yosemite International Airport’s Gate 17.
“Customers kind of vote with their wallet,” he added.” If they come out and fly us, we’ll have to continue to add and build. So if the community needs more air service from us, they’ll show us by flying us, and then we’ll continue to add” flights and routes.
For a Clovis couple, Sin City trip is quick fun
Christopher Stratton of Clovis said he and his wife, Rachel, knew right away that they “felt compelled to be on the first flight.”
“We thought it would be a good way to celebrate the fifth largest city in California and Southwest realizing that,” Stratton said during the flight.
The couple were planning to return later Sunday night, aboard the last Southwest flight of the day to Fresno.
“We’re really good at spontaneous travel,” Rachel Stratton said. “We thought about spending the night, but thought, ‘How fun would it be to go in the morning and come back that night?’”
Their plan was to see how much they could do in just under eight hours on the ground in Sin City, including a target golf attraction.
Christopher Stratton said he has high expectations for Southwest’s new Fresno service.
“Sometimes flying out of Fresno is prohibitively expensive,” he said. “Hopefully Southwest will challenge some other airlines to serve Fresnans a bit better and make travel more accessible.”
Fresno to Las Vegas ... via Illinois
One particularly hardy passenger not only flew out of Fresno on the first flight— he also flew earlier on the same airplane and was heading right back to Las Vegas.
But the day didn’t start in Las Vegas for Dakota Carrisalez, a 19-year-old student from San Antonio, Texas, who attends college in Carbondale, Illinois.
“I drove early this morning from Carbondale to St. Louis and then flew Southwest to Las Vegas just to fly on this plane,” Carrisalez said of the unique “California One” jet with the livery of the state flag.
Carrisalez likes to fly, especially on Southwest aircraft with the special state paint jobs. His favorite, he said, is “Maryland One,” featuring the design of that state’s flag.
But he’s also flown on California One about 14 or 15 times since he started flying and photographing planes in earnest two years ago, when he was in high school. In that time, he’s flown 677 times — he knows the exact number because he tracks them on his smartphone.
This story was originally published April 25, 2021 at 2:53 PM.
