Lambert Makes New Non-Stop Connection to West Coast, Orange County

St. Louis travelers are gaining a new destination and a new option to reach the Los Angeles metro area with non-stop service between Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL) and John Wayne Airport, Orange County (SNA). Southwest will launch the daily Boeing 737 service onNovember 22, the week of Thanksgiving. Tickets are on sale now at southwest.com.

“We’ll have great support for this new service because it was our own business community and top business travel managers that lobbied us and helped us make the case with Southwest to add service to Orange County,” said Lambert Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge. “We already have more than 100 people a day who make connections to John Wayne Airport. Now they will have the convenience of flying non-stop.”

Orange County was one of Lambert’s top targets for new service based on current passenger demand from St. Louis. Lambert already landed two other destinations on its priority list this year with new daily service to Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon. Southwest begins Austin (AUS) service onJune 28. Alaska Airlines begins Portland (PDX) service onJuly 1. Air Choice One will also begin new service to Jackson, Tennessee (MKL) onJune 22.

That gives Lambert three new destinations beginning in the peak summer travel season, which officially gets underway with the Memorial Day holiday. Lambert’s nine passenger airlines will offer non-stop service to 63 destinations this summer, with approximately 250 daily departures. Southwest is Lambert’s market leader. It will account for more than 90 flights per day to 37 destinations after it begins its Austin service in June. American Airlines, now operating US Airways, is Lambert’s second largest carrier, followed by Delta Air Lines.