Southwest Airlines may add overnight flights from Vegas By Richard N. Velotta <velotta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> LAS VEGAS SUN The only airline busier than Southwest at McCarran International Airport is America West -- after the sun goes down. Tempe, Ariz.-based America West has made its mark in Las Vegas by scheduling dozens of flights after 8 p.m., including a number of "red-eye" trips to the East Coast that leave McCarran after midnight and arrive as the sun comes up the next business day. Now, Southwest is considering the addition of late-night flights from Las Vegas to several cities east of the Mississippi River. Southwest hasn't made overnight flights because it previously flew to few cities in the eastern United States. All but one of the cities added to its system since 1996 are in the East, so the overnight service might make sense now, Chief Executive Gary Kelly said Tuesday at a New York conference sponsored by Citigroup Smith Barney. "We have a broader network, border to border," added Southwest spokesman Ed Stewart in a telephone interview today. Stewart said while Southwest is considering late-night flights, the company's focus will continue to be on developing its presence at Chicago's Midway Airport and expanding at Philadelphia, where the airline inaugurated service earlier this year. Stewart said another reason Southwest hasn't focused on overnight flights is there were other opportunities elsewhere that made more sense. He said there were no contractual restrictions in existing labor contracts regarding the operation of late-night flights. Las Vegas is Southwest's largest destination city with 185 flights a day, recently surpassing Phoenix, where the airline has 183 daily flights. At the end of the third quarter, about 39 percent of the Dallas-based airline's capacity was in the western United States, with an additional 16 percent in the Southwest. In a recent interview with In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Sun, Kelly said gate capacity is an issue the airline often faces in the markets it serves. But the company would be able to offer more than the average 10 flights a day from its gates if they were in operation after midnight. Representatives of McCarran could not be reached for comment today on their reaction to the Southwest plan and whether the airport has been approached by Southwest about future gate use. The airport has plans to build a bridge connecting the C-gate and B-gate terminals to give Southwest and America West the potential for additional capacity. America West has 111 daily flights between its mainline and America West Express commuter operations. Roger EWROPS