Southwest is Leaving Newark Airport

For New York and New Jersey Southwest fliers, here is some unfortunate news for you: Southwest is leaving Newark Airport on November 3, 2019. All flights on or past this date are being canceled and impacted fliers will be able to get a full refund or switch their flight to another nearby airport (LaGuardia, Islip and Philadelphia).

Although Southwest only started flying in and out of Newark airport in 2011, it still has a decent presence. Non-stop flights currently include: Chicago (Midway), Denver, St. Louis, Nashville, Austin, Phoenix, San Diego, Oakland, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, and from there you could continue onto many other destinations throughout the United States.

For those who frequently fly Southwest or have the Southwest Companion Pass, hopefully the other nearby airports will work for you. If you live in Long Island or New York City, Islip and LaGuardia are still great options, if you live in Westchester you can still consider LaGuardia or possibly even Hartford. Those in New Jersey are definitely impacted the most, although Philadelphia could also work. It all comes down to how far you are willing to drive to get to the airport.

Fortunately, for those in New Jersey though, Frontier Airlines has a large presence at Trenton Airport (TTN). Frontier many times has even lower far prices and there have been many promotions this year where your friends or child can fly with you for free. Here is a head-to-head on the Southwest Companion Pass vs. the Kids Fly Free benefits.

For those who have impacted flights, I highly suggest contacting Southwest soon to make sure there is another flight option that works with your schedule. If there are no other Southwest options out of the nearby airports, I suggest filing a complaint on their site or with their Twitter team and asking for some compensation (a voucher to use at another time) if you will be forced to spend more money out of pocket now on another airline.