Oct. 26—Pittsburgh is getting a nonstop flight to San Diego for the first time since early 2019, but you better jump on it fast. It will come and go faster than you can say Balboa Park.
Southwest Airlines announced Thursday that it's launching seasonal service between Pittsburgh International Airport and San Diego starting June 8. But the Saturday flight will be available only through August, according to the Allegheny County Airport Authority.
Nonetheless, the flight will be the first to the popular vacation and convention destination since Frontier Airlines discontinued its twice-weekly service in January 2019.
The new Southwest seasonal will take off from Pittsburgh at 4:35 p.m. and arrive in San Diego at 6:35 p.m. Pacific time. The return flight will depart San Diego at 8:35 a.m. and touch down here at 4:10 p.m.
"Southwest is continuing its plans to better optimize its network in the post-pandemic environment, responding to leisure and business travel trends, and we hope our customers at PIT enjoy this new transcontinental service to sunny Southern California," Brook Sorem, Southwest vice president of network planning, said in a statement to the airport authority's Blue Sky News.
With the addition, Pittsburgh will have service to all three major California cities, at least on a limited basis, for the first time in years.
Spirit Airlines flies daily and Breeze Airways twice a week to Los Angeles. United Airlines flies twice daily to San Francisco except on Saturday, when there's one flight.
According to the airport authority, Southwest also will resume seasonal flights to Myrtle Beach in June and will increase service to Nashville from two to three daily flights on peak days.
It also bumped up service to Phoenix from weekend only to daily in September and expanded service to Austin to daily from Sunday only this month. It will add a third daily nonstop to Atlanta on Nov. 5.
With the addition of San Diego, Southwest will have flights to 19 cities from Pittsburgh, the most of any airline here.
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