Here is the current breakdown of WN service out of SFO:
6x BUR, 3x DEN, 4x LAS, 5x LAX, 3x PHX, 5x SAN (26 daily departures)

WN SFO-MDW nonstop service is currently suspended through 6/11/2022, and then WN SFO-MDW nonstop service is scheduled to return on a Saturday-only basis starting on 6/11/2022 through 9/3/2022 and then on a Sunday-only basis starting on 9/4/2022 through 10/30/2022.

Here was the breakdown of WN service out of SFO in Summer 2017:
4x BUR, 3x MDW, 2x DAL, 5x DEN, 6x LAS, 9x LAX, 1x MKE, 6x SNA, 5x PHX, 3x PDX, 8x SAN, 1x STL (53 daily departures)

Chicago, Baltimore/Washington, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix were the only markets where WN carried more domestic passengers in January 2022 than it did from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Top destinations traveled to from the San Francisco Bay Area on WN that don't currently have WN nonstop service out of SFO (but have WN nonstop service from OAK or SJC) include SNA, ONT, HNL, LGB, PDX, SLC, SEA, BOI, OGG, GEG, DAL, PSP, MDW, EUG, and HOU.

Is WN likely to
(a) pull out out SFO (but retain WN service out of OAK and SJC in the San Francisco Bay Area),
(b) maintain current levels of service out of SFO,
(c) make further cuts at SFO but maintain service out of SFO in addition to OAK/SJC, or
(d) add more flights out of SFO
once WN has more staff and more planes?

If WN is planning on further expanding out of SFO, is WN likely to
(a) increase frequencies on current service out of SFO,
(b) resume routes that were dropped by WN such as SFO-DAL/SNA/STL, or
(c) add new routes out of SFO such as SFO-HOU/LGB/BNA/SLC/SEA?

Does WN really need a presence at SFO in addition to OAK and SJC, or could WN pull out of SFO and consolidate its San Francisco Bay Area presence to OAK and SJC?

6x SFO-SNA to 0x seems the oddest to me. For Monday, southwest.com shows nine SNA-SJC and seven SNA-OAK nonstops. Do you have 2017 flight info for OAK-SNA and SJC-SNA?

SNA has an allocation of slots so they lost slots to offer SFO is most likely. As to will they expand, I can see MDW and and DAL come back and some additional frequencies on other flights and probably about it as OAK and SJC are where they have always focuses in the bay area as long as I can remember. I don't see them pulling out a second time.

HowardDGA wrote:

6x SFO-SNA to 0x seems the oddest to me. For Monday, southwest.com shows nine SNA-SJC and seven SNA-OAK nonstops. Do you have 2017 flight info for OAK-SNA and SJC-SNA?

Here were the number of passengers, number of seats, and load factors for WN flights out of SFO in 2017:
BUR-SFO - 246351 passengers, 371244 seats, 66.36% load factor
DAL-SFO - 157400 passengers, 180992 seats, 86.97% load factor
DEN-SFO - 406566 passengers, 487137 seats, 83.46% load factor
LAS-SFO - 546811 passengers, 632934 seats, 86.39% load factor
LAX-SFO - 559430 passengers, 822498 seats, 68.02% load factor
MDW-SFO - 229999 passengers, 255098 seats, 90.16% load factor
MKE-SFO - 64202 passengers, 74513 seats, 86.16% load factor
PDX-SFO - 91859 passengers, 164798 seats, 55.74% load factor
PHX-SFO - 359993 passengers, 484973 seats, 74.23% load factor
SAN-SFO - 534583 passengers, 722877 seats, 73.95% load factor
SFO-SNA - 389890 passengers, 531309 seats, 73.38% load factor
SFO-STL - 100762 passengers, 116780 seats, 86.28% load factor

Here were the number of passengers, number of seats, and load factors for SNA-OAK/SJC on WN in 2017:
SJC-SNA - 704355 passengers, 889827 seats, 79.16% load factor
OAK-SNA - 629862 passengers, 778558 seats, 80.90% load factor

jplatts wrote:

Here is the current breakdown of WN service out of SFO:
6x BUR, 3x DEN, 4x LAS, 5x LAX, 3x PHX, 5x SAN (26 daily departures)

WN SFO-MDW nonstop service is currently suspended through 6/11/2022, and then WN SFO-MDW nonstop service is scheduled to return on a Saturday-only basis starting on 6/11/2022 through 9/3/2022 and then on a Sunday-only basis starting on 9/4/2022 through 10/30/2022.

Here was the breakdown of WN service out of SFO in Summer 2017:
4x BUR, 3x MDW, 2x DAL, 5x DEN, 6x LAS, 9x LAX, 1x MKE, 6x SNA, 5x PHX, 3x PDX, 8x SAN, 1x STL (53 daily departures)

Chicago, Baltimore/Washington, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix were the only markets where WN carried more domestic passengers in January 2022 than it did from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Top destinations traveled to from the San Francisco Bay Area on WN that don't currently have WN nonstop service out of SFO (but have WN nonstop service from OAK or SJC) include SNA, ONT, HNL, LGB, PDX, SLC, SEA, BOI, OGG, GEG, DAL, PSP, MDW, EUG, and HOU.

Is WN likely to
(a) pull out out SFO (but retain WN service out of OAK and SJC in the San Francisco Bay Area),
(b) maintain current levels of service out of SFO,
(c) make further cuts at SFO but maintain service out of SFO in addition to OAK/SJC, or
(d) add more flights out of SFO
once WN has more staff and more planes?

If WN is planning on further expanding out of SFO, is WN likely to
(a) increase frequencies on current service out of SFO,
(b) resume routes that were dropped by WN such as SFO-DAL/SNA/STL, or
(c) add new routes out of SFO such as SFO-HOU/LGB/BNA/SLC/SEA?

Does WN really need a presence at SFO in addition to OAK and SJC, or could WN pull out of SFO and consolidate its San Francisco Bay Area presence to OAK and SJC?

Your question has 7 questions!!!

Simple and ONLY answer is, no one person on here knows

jplatts wrote:

Does WN really need a presence at SFO in addition to OAK and SJC, or could WN pull out of SFO and consolidate its San Francisco Bay Area presence to OAK and SJC?

Were the reductions related to BA/B construction? You'd think WN would be motivated to increase flights following the completion of BA/B.

Here is the current breakdown of WN service out of SFO:
4x BUR, 4x DEN, 4x LAS, 4x LAX, 3x PHX, 5x SAN (24 daily departures)

WN has really gutted SFO, whereas WN has already restored most of its service out of OAK and SJC.

WN was still operating SFO-MDW/ONT/STL nonstop service in Q1 2020, but completely dropped SFO-MDW/ONT/STL nonstop service.

Does WN really need to restore more flights out of SFO to remain relevant in its network and in the San Francisco Bay Area?

jplatts wrote:

Does WN really need to restore more flights out of SFO to remain relevant in its network and in the San Francisco Bay Area?

It seems like WN has answered this question for you. If they saw untapped demand or potential at SFO, they would add more flights and routes. The fact that they haven't seems to suggest they're good with where they're at.

There's really no reason for them to build SFO into a huge operation when they already have a hub-like operation across the bay at OAK and a significant operation down in SJC. WN is running out of cities to add, so they're moving into major airports they previously shunned like SFO, ORD, and IAH. But they're keeping service at those airports limited to flights to other WN hub-like destinations, not adding a bunch of O&D.

People who use SFO as their primary airport as opposed to trekking across the Bay to use WN at OAK are probably loyal to UA or maybe AS anyway and aren't likely looking to book WN unless the schedule just happens or to work or the price is too good to pass up.

SFO is far more prone to delay than OAK or SJC. Given WN’s tight turnaround practices, this may enter into their thinking in choosing where to allocate staff and aircraft.

UALFAson wrote:

It seems like WN has answered this question for you. If they saw untapped demand or potential at SFO, they would add more flights and routes. The fact that they haven't seems to suggest they're good with where they're at.

There's really no reason for them to build SFO into a huge operation when they already have a hub-like operation across the bay at OAK and a significant operation down in SJC. WN is running out of cities to add, so they're moving into major airports they previously shunned like SFO, ORD, and IAH. But they're keeping service at those airports limited to flights to other WN hub-like destinations, not adding a bunch of O&D.

People who use SFO as their primary airport as opposed to trekking across the Bay to use WN at OAK are probably loyal to UA or maybe AS anyway and aren't likely looking to book WN unless the schedule just happens or to work or the price is too good to pass up.

WN already has 1-stop connectivity onto DEN-SFO from some stations east of the Mississippi River (along with 1-stop connectivity from SFO-DEN on WN), including ATL, BWI, BHM, BOS, MDW, ORD, CLE, CMH, DTW, IND, SDF, MEM, MKE, BNA, MSY, LGA, MCO, PHL, and TPA.

There will also be a few more stations east of the Mississippi River that will have 1-stop connectivity onto WN DEN-SFO (along with 1-stop connectivity from SFO-DEN on WN) in Summer 2023, including CVG, GRR, JAX, and RDU.