What's behind Southwest's return to San Francisco?

All of a sudden, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is attracting scads of discount airlines. What's up?

Word that discount airline Southwest will be returning to the West Bay airport follows hard on the heels of JetBlue's announcement that it is launching SFO flights.

Southwest pulled up stakes in San Francisco on March 4, 2001, consolidating all San Francisco Bay flights out of Oakland (OAK), and San Jose (SJC). Now, Gary Kelly, Southwest CEO and Vice Chairman, says SFO “is a more cost-efficient airport” from which to fly. Thus, the return.

Could there be something else at work? Discount airline Virgin America has been attempting to launch flights from San Francisco for some time, and has so far been thwarted by issues of foreign ownership. Could JetBlue and Southwest be rushing into SFO in an attempt to pre-empt Virgin America, by flying some of its proposed prime routes?

JetBlue says one of its first routes out of SFO will be to New York JFK, a route Virgin America wants to fly. It will be instructive to see what runs Southwest will start up. Initially, Virgin America wants to fly from San Francisco to Washington, DC; Los Angeles (LAX), Las Vegas (LAX), San Diego (SAN), and JFK.

Southwest hasn't yet said which routes it will fly from San Francisco, or when it will resume service.

© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler