Southwest Airlines will beef up its international portfolio on Thursday with the opening of a new concourse it financed at Houston Hobby Airport.
The five-gate concourse will house Hobby's first customs facility as well as a Southwest ticket counter. It has been under construction since September 2013.
"We just believe that by funding this facility, it shows Houston how excited we are and that we're dedicated to growing our international footprint," Southwest spokeswoman Thais Hanson said.
The airline will begin service from Houston to Cancun, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City, Belize City and San Jose (Costa Rica) on Thursday. Southwest flights between Houston and Montego Bay, Jamaica; and Liberia, Costa Rica, will begin on Nov. 1. Previously, Southwest offered just one international route from Hobby - to and from Aruba, where passengers cleared customs prior to boarding their flights to the United States.
The expansion at Hobby will increase the number of gates Southwest operates at Houston's second airport from 18 to 23. The new routes will allow Southwest to offer more appealing international connections for Dallas-based travelers, as international flights from that city's Love Field (where Southwest controls 18 of the 20 gates) are prohibited under federal regulations.
Southwest, which operates 3,600 flights per day, began operating international routes in July 2014. It will serve 12 destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean with the launch of the Liberia service next month.