Southwest Airlines has announced its largest summer schedule to date, and travellers in Texas and Tennessee are the main beneficiaries. The Dallas-based carrier is adding 11 routes across 15 cities for summer 2027, and nine of them are flights it has never operated before. Even better for holiday planners: three of the new links take Austinites to the beach.
Austin Bergstrom International is the standout. From 3 June to 2 August 2027, Southwest will fly weekend service from Austin to Liberia in Costa Rica (the gateway to Guanacaste's Pacific coast), Nassau in the Bahamas, and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic — the first time the airline has connected Austin to any of them. Domestic additions round out the picture: daily seasonal flights to Portland, seasonal Saturday service to Sarasota-Bradenton, weekend flights to Savannah/Hilton Head, and Saturdays to Bozeman Yellowstone. That's seven new or returning routes in total, and Southwest expects around 143 departures on peak days — its biggest Austin operation ever. The airline still dominates there, even as Delta has been expanding aggressively in the Texas capital.
Nashville gets its own slice of the action with two new island escapes: Nassau and Providenciales in Turks and Caicos, plus a new domestic link to Boise. Combined with returning seasonal service to Bozeman, Southwest is planning up to 220 daily flights in Nashville next summer. San Diego's headline addition is a new seasonal Sunday route to Oklahoma City, alongside returning seasonal flights to Bozeman, Pittsburgh and Columbus.
There's a strategy behind the summer surge. Austin and Nashville are the two airports where Southwest is building its first-ever airport lounges, so flooding both cities with new routes fits neatly with the airline's push to court higher-spending travellers — alongside its recent moves to assigned seating and new boarding rules.
The catch worth noting: this is a seasonal 'route drop', so the international flights run only during the peak June-to-early-August window. If a direct Austin-to-Punta Cana or Nashville-to-Turks and Caicos trip appeals, book early for summer 2027 rather than assuming the route will still be there in autumn. Tickets should go on sale well in advance, and Southwest's schedule of weekend-only service on the Caribbean and Costa Rica routes makes those flights especially prone to selling out in peak holiday weeks.
For travellers, it's a rare win: more nonstop beach and mountain options from two fast-growing cities that have often had to connect through Dallas, Houston or Atlanta to reach the Caribbean.
