Denver, St. Louis, Nashville, Seattle and Baltimore/Washington are the big winners in Southwest Airlines' new plans to add more flights to its summer schedule next year.
By Roger Yu, USA TODAY

Denver, St. Louis, Nashville, Seattle and Baltimore/Washington are the big winners in Southwest Airlines' new plans to add more flights to its summer schedule next year.

The discount carrier says it's adding 65 round-trip flights and eliminating 24 — a net gain of 41 — for its schedule from May 9 through Aug. 13. Many additions are going to markets where it has been beefing up operations recently.

At Baltimore/Washington Thurgood Marshall, where Southwest is the largest carrier, the number of daily flights will increase by 10, bringing its total daily departures to 181. Its new 2010 destinations from Baltimore include Los Angeles, Seattle-Tacoma and Panama City, Fla.'s, new airport, which will open in the spring.

Southwest will add nine more at Nashville, including new service to St. Louis, Seattle, Oakland and Panama City.

At Denver, Southwest has added nine more daily flights to its May schedule, including new Saturday-only non-stop service to New York LaGuardia. It has plans to add 15 more in August but won't release details until early next year.

St. Louis will get 10 added daily departures and eight new non-stop markets, including service to Los Angeles, San Diego, New Orleans, Nashville and Raleigh/Durham, N.C.
Seattle will get eight more flights.

Seattle's Sound Transit finished a 1.7-mile extension on Saturday of its light-rail line to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, allowing people to ride public transportation to the airport from various parts of the metropolitan area.

Seattle opened the Central Link line in July, which connected travelers from downtown Seattle to Tukwila, a suburb near the airport. The airport had been using free shuttle service from the Tukwila station to Sea-Tac until now.

The newly opened SeaTac/Airport Station is located outside a parking garage.

Several airports are offering free gift-wrapping service this week, as travelers are advised to leave gifts unwrapped before checking them or taking them through security checkpoints to avoid secondary screening.

Volunteers at Phoenix Sky Harbor will offer gift wrapping past security Monday through Thursday. The Container Store and Southwest Airlines (LUV) are teaming for free wrapping service at the following airports on Monday: Dallas Love Field (Gate 5); Phoenix (D Gates); Denver (Gate C41); St. Louis (Gates 14 and 16) and Baltimore/Washington (Gates B1, B2 and B3).

U.S. Airways (LCC) launched daily, non-stop service last week to Honolulu and Rio de Janeiro from Charlotte, its largest hub.

The carrier also began four-times-weekly non-stop service to Montego Bay, Jamaica, from its home airport, Phoenix, last week.

JetBlue (JBLU) is adding its fourth destination in the Dominican Republic. Its new service to Punta Cana, a popular beach resort area in the easternmost part of the island nation, is scheduled to begin at New York JFK on May 6 and Boston Logan two days later.

A year after suspending its Boston-San Jose route because of high fuel costs, JetBlue said last week it will resume daily, non-stop flights between the two technology-centric cities on May 13.

AirTran (AAI) will resume scheduled service between Gulfport/Biloxi, Miss., and its hub in Atlanta on Jan. 8, replacing its current charter service between the two cities.