Southwest to start flying into LaGuardia (LGA) as of June 28

Hey, all of you Southwest Airlines fans. If flying into Long Island, on trips to New York have been trying your patience, now is the time to rejoice. Southwest will begin flying in and out of LaGuardia as of June 28.

For starters, there will be eight daily nonstop departures — five daily nonstop flights between Chicago Midway (MDW) and LaGuardia (LGA) and three daily nonstop departures between Baltimore/Washington (BWI) and LaGuardia. Fares are on sale right now starting at $49 from BWI and $89 from Chicago, one way with a 14-day advance purchase.

What does that mean for Southern California travelers? Higher prices and a stop in Chicago or Baltimore/Washington.

Deal or no deal? I tested booking a flight between LAX and LGA after June 28 and found flights  available, but they weren’t that cheap. Try in the neighborhood of $179 each way, even though it was through a Wanna Get Away sale with a low of $99 one way. So, I used the Southwest Shortcut to Low Fares (a tool I hadn’t noticed before) and it popped up a calendar that showed which dates had the lowest fares. There was a $99 fare on Tuesday, July 7, and $149 fares July 21-22 and July 28-29. The price ranged between $179 and $291 each way, pretax on other dates. In the end, a low-end fare cost $374 (July 21-25).

I checked Kayak, and flying that same route on the same dates would’ve been $297 (nonstop) on Air Tran.

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

[Image: Southwest.com]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 11:00 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Airline travel, East Coast, New York, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.