Southwest to drop Pittsburgh-to-Los Angeles nonstop flights

Southwest Airlines will eliminate nonstop flights between Pittsburgh and Los Angeles as it drops nonstop flights to many of the cities it serves.

The changes are effective Jan. 6, 2020.

Also in January, Southwest will add more flights to Atlanta, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Chicago Midway, Fort Myers and Tampa, according to Pittsburgh International Airport.

Southwest’s daily, nonstop service between Pittsburgh and Los Angeles had largely been suspended since June partly due to the grounding of all Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in March after two deadly crashes.

Spirit Airlines still offers daily, nonstop service to Los Angeles from Pittsburgh.

“The change still allows us to offer itineraries with as little as one stop between LAX and PIT, while utilizing our aircraft to meet demand on other routes and frequencies. We are always evaluating our service patterns and performance to ensure that we are offering the right number of seats based on demand from travelers in the communities we serve,” Southwest said in statement.

In all, Southwest is dropping nearly 20 nonstop routes in January in order to free up the planes for flights that are more in demand, including its new Hawaii routes.