Southwest offers nonstop flights to Portland, Boise

LB AIRPORT

Southwest Airlines will offer nonstop weekend flights to Portland, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho, out of the Long Beach Airport starting in October, the airport announced March 9.

The news came a month after Long Beach Airport allocated another five flight slots to Southwest, which were available because of surplus allowances in the city’s noise ordinance, further securing the airline’s status as Long Beach’s largest carrier.

Had Long Beach not awarded those additional slots, the grandfathered status of its noise ordinance allocations would have been nullified, and the airport would have had a smaller noise budget to work with during the current budget year, according to news reports.

Air carriers now offer service to 24 nonstop destinations around the nation, which is more nonstop service than at any time in LGB’s nearly 100year history. Of the 58 daily flight slots currently held at Long Beach’s noise-controlled airport, Southwest holds 45; Delta Air Lines holds seven, Hawaiian Airlines has two, and UPS has one.