[November 22, 2008] Southwest adding D.C. flights for Obama's inauguration Tweet (Dallas Morning News, The Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 22--Southwest Airlines Co. became the latest air carrier Friday to add flights to take eager Barack Obama supporters to the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration -- or departing Republicans the other direction. Southwest joins other carriers, including JetBlue Airways Corp., AirTran Airways Inc., Virgin America Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc., that have put on more airplanes to and from the capital to handle the expected record inaugural crowd. Southwest said it was adding 26 flights to and from Baltimore and Washington Dulles between Jan. 17 and Jan. 23 to a number of airports, including Austin and Houston Hobby. "Flights are filling up, and Southwest Airlines wants to offer our customers more service into the D.C. area for the inauguration celebration," said Pete McGlade, the carrier's vice president of schedule planning. "We carefully combed through our flight schedule and were able to add these flights from key cities into both Baltimore/Washington and Washington Dulles during peak travel times," he said. American Airlines Inc., which serves the president-elect's hometown of Chicago, hasn't put on extra flights yet, but "it is possible," spokesman Tim Smith said. A JetBlue official said her carrier was the first to announce special Obama flights, with extra flights from Oakland and Long Beach in California and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. In addition, JetBlue is adding a nonstop flight from Chicago O'Hare to Dulles -- a trip that normally would go through New York. "We added these additional flights because on peak travel days, we are seeing bookings close to double what we would see on a normal day in January," spokeswoman Alison Croyle said. Virgin America, a new carrier that started flying in August 2007, is operating extra flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Dulles. AirTran has added flights from Atlanta to Washington Dulles and Baltimore and Milwaukee to Baltimore, and it says it'll add more if needed. To see more of The Dallas Morning News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dallasnews.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Dallas Morning News Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]