RICHMOND, Va. — Southwest Airlines announced that nonstop service from Richmond to Orlando will be discontinued, as a part of restructuring its flight operations across the country.
The schedule change takes effect by April 12, 2016.
Southwest will continue three flights per day from Richmond to Atlanta, where additional connecting flights will be added.
“This is disappointing news after Southwest’s much-anticipated Richmond service launch in November 2013, once it had completed the acquisition of AirTran,” wrote Jon E. Mathiasen, President and CEO of Richmond International Airport.
In a previous interview Mathiasen said the Orlando route was something “the community has longed for more than 15 years.”
Richmond also longed for other low fare routes, and the Chamber spent over half a million on the “Save Low Fares Richmond” campaign to convince people to fly AirTran and JetBlue.
“At that time [2013], Southwest executives expressed optimism about the Richmond market due to our attractive location in Central Virginia and the demonstrated support of the business community through the Save Low Fares initiative,” Mathiasen said. “Both business and leisure travelers did support this Orlando route, which Southwest management has told us was profitable.”
Southwest maintains that the nonstop flights will cease as a part of restructuring its flight operations across the country. A total of 121 routes have been dropped from 32 airports around the country.
The airline will add 10 new nonstop service routes, none of which are close to Virginia other than the Newark to Orlando and Newark to Vegas routes.
“The good news is that overall volume at RIC has experienced 19 months of continuous growth, a record matched by only a few airports in the nation,” said Mathiasen.
JetBlue will continue its direct service to the popular Florida destination, according to airport representatives.
