Southwest Airlines offers direct flights from BWI to cities on the West Coast

The weather is getting colder, election day is approaching – it's the perfect time to avoid falling into an abyss of existential dread when planning your next summer vacation. And Southwest Airlines has good news for travelers who prefer to fly out of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

The Dallas-based airline, which handles about 70% of BWI traffic, has announced six new nonstop routes between BWI and the West Coast starting in mid-2025. This includes flights to and from San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, as well as three other airports in California: Long Beach, San Jose and Ontario, east of Los Angeles.

Starting June 5, daily flights will operate between BWI and Portland and Seattle.

But remember your eye mask and neck pillow – the return flights from all of these cities are overnight “red-eye” flights. Southwest already operates six additional overnight flights to BWI. They come from Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Phoenix.

“Every flight on our network is a route,” Chip Perry, a spokesman for Southwest Airlines, said in an email. “If we fly it in one direction, we fly it in the other direction at the same frequency. Please note that the single daily flight FROM Baltimore to the above six airports is not a Red Eye flight, but the flights TO Baltimore – of which there is also a daily flight from these six airports – are Red Eye flights.”

Southwest now offers flights to San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, but travelers typically have to catch a connecting flight in cities like Las Vegas or Phoenix.

The new routes are the airline's latest service expansion, which has almost single-handedly driven BWI's growth.

Despite a holiday crisis in 2022 and difficult negotiations with the pilots' union, Southwest remains a preferred airline for Baltimore area residents. It helped BWI set a record for international passengers last year.

“These new flights will promote tourism and business development for our state and region,” Ricky Smith, executive director and CEO of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, said in a news release. “We are working to improve the travel product for our customers while creating more options for flight services from our airline partners.”