JACKSON, Miss. - Southwest Airlines said Thursday that it is closing down operations at Jackson-Evers International Airport on June 6.
Bob Jordan, Southwest’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said the level of local demand no longer allows Southwest to profitably serve Jackson.
The changes come as the company works on folding AirTran Airways - which served many smaller cities -into the Southwest brand by the end of 2014. The Dallas-based airline is the nation’s fourth largest by passenger traffic. Southwest bought AirTran in 2011.
The airline is also pulling out of Branson and Key West, Fla., two cities it inherited from AirTran.
Jordan said Southwest employees will have the opportunity to move elsewhere within the airline after operations cease next year. The airline said it employs 31 people in Jackson.
Over the next six months,Southwest will operate its full schedule at Jackson with four daily departures to Chicago’s Midway Airport, Houston’s Hobby Airport and Orlando, Fla.
“We were on notice that this could happen,” said Dirk Vanderleest, CEO of the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, told The Clarion-Ledger.
Annual passenger counts had plunged from a peak of 481,000 in 2006 to 331,000 last year, Vanderleest said. Southwest began service to Jackson-Evers International in 1997.
Business, Pages 24 on 12/06/2013