Southwest Airlines will fly to Sacramento from Long Beach Airport starting in August.
The airport last year added nine slots after noise studies found it could do so and stay within local limits. It awarded Southwest five of those slots, and the carrier added the airport to its network.
It flies to Oakland from those five positions, and it later added flights to Las Vegas and Denver on weekend slots that go unused by FedEx and UPS.
Southwest recently got two more spaces when American Airlines gave them up and will use those to fly to Sacramento.
JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines had expressed interest in the two new slots, but the city granted them to Southwest as a new air carrier at the airport.
Southwest said it would add flights if more positions at the airport open up.
John Wayne Airport late last year cut Southwest’s seat allocation by 930,000, and the carrier eliminated seven daily flights from JWA.
—Paul Hughes
