By Morgan Simpson – Reporter , Baltimore Business Journal
Nov 26, 2025
Southwest Airlines continued to double down this year on BWI Airport as its East Coast hub, adding new flights to the schedule and wrapping up some major projects.
The largest airline carrier at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport added or announced at least ninenew flight routes from Baltimore and opened a multimillion-dollar maintenance facility in 2025. As the Dallas-based carrier builds on its Maryland presence, it’s also making major changes to its business model, including the planned elimination of open seating starting in 2026.
“We feel very confident they’ll continue to expand their growth here at BWI and then do some things certainly around the country, too, to start expanding and being able to work through this new business model,” Shannetta Griffin, the new executive director and CEO of the Maryland Aviation Administration, told the Baltimore Business Journal in October of Southwest’s evolution.
This year, Southwest (NYSE: LUV) added nonstop, redeye service from Portland, Seattle and San Francisco, as well as three other California cities: Ontario, Long Beach and San Jose. Those additional flights came despite announcing a 1.5% reduction in the carrier’s flights nationwide in 2025. The airline also unveiled some new routes that will start in 2026: a direct flight to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands kicking off in February, daily service to Knoxville, Tennessee starting in March, and flights to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten launching in April.
