Southwest vacation bundling program to have Las Vegas emphasis

When Southwest Airlines launches its new Getaways by Southwest vacation packaging program next summer, it will go big in Las Vegas and use some of Southern Nevada’s biggest resort properties as partners.

Unveiled last month during Southwest’s Investor Day presentation, the Dallas-based airline, the busiest commercial flight operator at Harry Reid International Airport, plans a vacation bundling program that will include the company’s flexible travel policies extended to hotel rooms and other elements of packaged vacations.

In the company’s Thursday earnings call with investors, Southwest announced its first partner in the new program — Caesars Entertainment Inc.

Caesars officials weren’t available to comment on how the partnership would help it.

“We expect to continue to add to the number of partners over time and we hope to have some more in Las Vegas as well as some of our other large leisure markets like Orlando, Hawaii, Cancun and Montego Bay,” said Ryan Green, executive vice president of commercial transformation for Southwest.

“Those are just really large leisure markets that we have a very large presence in, and we’re going to bring a unique solution to the market. It’s what you expect from Southwest. It’s customer-friendly, it’s transparent, it’s flexible, and it’s going to come with the hospitality of our employees and eventually the ability to redeem your Rapid Rewards points for these packages,” he said. “We’re just excited to have great partners like Caesars and others on board for that journey as well.”

The program is part of the “Southwest. Even Better” strategy the airline unveiled at its Sept. 26 Investors Day presentation that included plans for how to make the airline more profitable. The airline was responding to a hostile board takeover bid by one of its largest shareholders, Florida-based Elliott Investment Management.

Southwest announced Thursday it will replace several current members of the board of directors and will add five directors nominated by Elliott. In addition, Board Chairman Gary Kelly will retire from the board Nov. 1 instead of in February as planned, but the airline will keep its current CEO, Bob Jordan, who Elliott wanted out.

The moves announced Thursday were viewed as a compromise with Elliott, which feels Southwest needs a massive change in policies to increase profitability.

The Getaways by Southwest plan is expected to grow over time with several Las Vegas resorts, restaurants, entertainment options and experiences to be added in the future.

Green indicated that if the program is successful, it should increase demand — and if there’s more demand, that could mean more Southwest flights. The airline currently offers 277 daily departures to 70 cities and has more than 5,000 local employees. Last year, Southwest served 20.9 million passengers in Las Vegas, a 15.6 percent increase over the previous year and roughly 36 percent of the 57.6 million passengers who flew to Las Vegas in 2023.