Southwest changing connecting-flight plans

Southwest Airlines, the major carrier at MacArthur Airport in Islip, may be moving toward a hub-and-spoke system in some larger cities - a break from its traditional point-to-point schedule, according to a published report.

One result has been a faster connection linking Islip to West Palm Beach, Fla., the airline said.

The hub-and-spoke system, a hallmark of many large airlines, relies on connecting flights that move through a limited number of cities.

More and more, Southwest is scheduling flight arrivals and departures at its Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix terminals as part of a connecting-flight arrangement, Southwest executive Bob Jordan told The Dallas Morning News on Sunday.

Of Dallas-based Southwest's daily average of about 3,200 flights, about 400 to 425 are arranged specifically for connections, according to Jordan.

"We're still primarily point-to-point," he said. "We've got a network built around point-to-point. All that we've really done is go back and look at flight times in a way that we could better arrange some of these connecting opportunities."

Jordan gave an example of one effect of the changes in Southwest's scheduling at Baltimore, one of the carrier's busiest airports.

Long Island MacArthur passengers couldn't make a connection to West Palm Beach because the connecting time in Baltimore was too long.

So, last spring, Southwest rearranged MacArthur's Baltimore-bound arrival times to reduce the wait for the Baltimore-to-West Palm Beach flight.

It worked, Jordan said, and Southwest immediately began selling more seats to West Palm Beach-bound passengers out of Islip.