Austin is quietly becoming one of Southwest Airlines' most important hubs. The Texas carrier has now flown out of the state capital for 49 years, and it currently leads Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on passengers, flights, seats and miles flown. It averages 218 daily takeoffs and landings — about 5% above last year's record — and accounts for 41% of scheduled movements at AUS, nearly double second-place Delta.
The bigger news for travellers: 11 new nonstop routes from Austin are rolling out across 2026 and 2027. Ski and desert lovers get first dibs, with Steamboat Springs and Palm Springs both launching on March 7, 2026 — Palm Springs starting at two weekly flights but ramping up toward daily service by 2027. Cincinnati and Seattle follow in early June 2026, with the Seattle link returning after a gap since 2018.
Autumn 2026 brings a burst of new cities: Knoxville from September 24 (a brand-new Southwest destination), Memphis on October 1, then short seasonal runs to Destin-Fort Walton Beach and Santa Rosa in California wine country, both weekly and only through October 24. Spring 2027 adds Fort Myers, Detroit and — the headline grabber — a weekly nonstop to San José, Costa Rica, starting March 13, 2027. That's Southwest's first Austin route outside the United States in this expansion, and a rare low-cost option for a Central America beach break straight from Texas.
One route comes with a caution flag. Palm Springs flights in the initial March-to-May window carried just 3,373 round-trip passengers at a 61.3% load factor, with April and May below 43%. It's a weak market for everyone: Alaska, American and Delta all struggled to fill planes on the same route in recent years. Service resumes in November, so it's worth watching whether schedules hold.
Austin also matters as a connecting point. Over the 12 months to June 2026, Southwest carried nearly 9.1 million passengers through AUS, about 2.4 million of them connecting onward — worth an estimated $352 million in revenue. Popular transfer itineraries include El Paso-Orlando, Harlingen-Las Vegas and Phoenix-Miami, though Dallas Love and Houston Hobby handle far more connections.
For anyone based in Central Texas, this is a genuine win: more nonstops means fewer layovers in Dallas or Houston, and the new leisure destinations — ski slopes, desert resorts, Florida panhandle beaches and Costa Rica — map neatly onto holiday plans. Book early for the seasonal routes like Destin and Santa Rosa, which only run a few weeks.
