Southwest Airlines Will Add One of Its New Shortest Routes

Southwest Airlines is set to launch one of its shortest routes this summer.

Starting June 4, Southwest will begin flying a new route from Baltimore, Maryland (BWI) to Richmond, Virginia (RIC). Flights will operate twice daily using its Boeing 737 aircraft.

At 121 miles, this represents one of Southwest’s shortest routes in its network, possibly within the top 5. Some routes that are shorter than BWI-RIC include Denver (DEN) to Colorado Springs (COS) at 73 miles, Kona (KOA) to Maui (OGG) at 84 miles, and Honolulu (HNL) to both Maui (OGG) and Lihue (LIH) at approximately 100 miles.

Although Baltimore to Richmond’s distance is longer, its block time is scheduled at 45-50 minutes, which roughly matches the block time of the four shorter routes.

Presumably Southwest will offer BWI-RIC primarily to drive connections through Baltimore, which is one of the airline’s largest stations.