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Oakland / Tribune News Service
Southwest Airlines has hit 100 daily departures from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
The airline is the airport’s dominant carrier, with about half the market share, and has its own terminal.
Its newest nonstop flights are to Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Cleveland.
St. Louis passengers already could get to Cleveland and Portland directly on other airlines, but Oakland is a new nonstop destination from Lambert.
Southwest has added 11 new destinations from St. Louis in the last year.
This month is the first time in more than 10 years that any one airline has had more than 100 daily departures from Lambert, said Dave Harvey, Southwest’s managing director of business development, at a news conference Monday.
Mayor Francis Slay hailed Lambert for its resilience in the aftermath of Trans World Airlines’ demise and the pullout of much of American Airlines operations, saying Lambert has more boardings than airports such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Austin, Texas.
Southwest has been beefing up staff and operations in St. Louis, including adding two new gates that opened in April.
Officials said no new baggage carousels are set to be added for passengers on the additional flights, although they’ll keep tabs on whether more are needed in the future.