With Southwest Introducing Red-eyes and New Ways to Get to Florida and the Super Bowl — Here Are the Airline Routes We're Most Excited About in February

Touchdown! The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles will face off in the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, a bonanza for special flights to New Orleans.

In Travel + Leisure’s latest highlights of the most exciting new routes, February not only has lots of flights to the big game but also new red-eyes from Southwest, and dozens of new snowbird options to Florida.

13 New Super Bowl Routes

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines are all adding new routes to the Big Easy catering to those heading to the big game. Kansas City and Philadelphia, for obvious reasons, will see the most additions.

From Kansas City, American will add flights to New Orleans on Feb. 6, 7, 8, and 10; Delta on Feb. 7; and United on 7 and 8, schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium Diio shows. And Southwest Airlines will octuple its once daily Kansas City-New Orleans flight to eight a day on Feb. 7. Returning from New Orleans, American will offer nonstops on Feb. 6, 7, 10, and 11; and both Delta and United on Feb. 10. Tickets are not cheap; travelers can still snag a seat on American departing Kansas City on Feb. 7 and returning on the 10th for $895 roundtrip in economy.

From Philadelphia, Delta will add flights to New Orleans on Feb. 7 and 8; Southwest on Feb. 7, 8, and 10; and United on Feb. 6, 7, 8, and 10, Cirium schedules show. American and Frontier Airlines already fly the route. Delta and United will offer returns from New Orleans on Feb. 10, and Southwest on Feb. 7 and 10. Frontier currently offers the lowest round-trip fare of $1,667 departing Feb. 6 and returning Feb. 10.

Other special routes to the big game include American to New Orleans from Boston, Los Angeles, and New York JFK with select flights on Feb. 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11. Delta from Seattle on Feb. 7 and 10. JetBlue from Newark on Feb. 7. And United from Los Angeles and New York LaGuardia on Feb. 6, 7, 9, and 10.

Southwest Launches Red-Eyes

For the first time in its 50-plus year history, Southwest will offer overnight flights beginning Feb. 13. The airline’s first red-eyes, so called for the way one’s eyes may look after sitting upright in an aluminum tube all night, will launch on five routes: Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix to Baltimore-Washington, plus Las Vegas to Orlando and Los Angeles to Nashville. Red-eyes typically only operate eastbound due to the time lost covering the three time zones that separate Pacific Time and Eastern Time.

Southwest’s new overnight flights will all operate daily and depart the West Coast between 9:30 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. local time, and land around 6 a.m. local time on the East Coast. The shortest red eye is Phoenix-Baltimore scheduled at only four hours and five minutes, and the longest is Los Angeles-Baltimore at nearly five hours. One-way fares for the new flights range from as low as $191 for Los Angeles-Nashville to as high as $484 for Los Angeles-Baltimore.

Dozens of New Snowbird Options to Florida

Allegiant Air, Breeze Airways, and Southwest are adding dozens of new routes to the Sunshine State just in time for northerners to escape the next six weeks of winter. Allegiant will boost its Gulf Coast options with seven new routes to Sarasota-Bradenton from Albany, Emira-Corning, Greenville-Spartanburg, Moline, Omaha, Roanoke, and Knoxville beginning either Feb. 13 or 14. All of the routes will operate either two- or three-days a week most frequently on Mondays and Fridays, and Thursdays and Sundays. Airfares start at $49 to $69 one way.

Breeze, JetBlue-founder David Neeleman’s latest airline venture, is adding at least 11 new routes to Florida this month. Daytona Beach, home of the legendary race track, gains new nonstops to Hartford, Providence, and Raleigh-Durham; Orlando sees new flights to Gulfport-Biloxi, Ogdensburg (N.Y.), and Wilmington (N.C.); and Fort Myers to South Bend and Wilmington. Flights on the new routes start as early as Feb. 5 in Fort Myers with the majority, including those from Daytona Beach and Orlando, beginning Feb. 13 or 14. Introductory fares range from as low as $49 one way to $89 one way.

And Southwest, the second largest airline by seats to Florida after American, is not to be left out. The discounter will add Saturday-only nonstops between Fort Myers and Rochester, Orlando and Boston, Sarasota-Bradenton and Albany, and West Palm Beach and Buffalo beginning Feb. 15. Fares on the new routes range from Albany-Sarasota at $104 one-way to Boston-Orlando at $234 one way. 

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