tl;dr – Peanuts anyone?
Southwest Airlines, the carrier that used to show all the LUV but now doesn’t commenced service to Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, California today.
The airport is, of course, named for the famed cartoonist who created the comic strip Peanuts and gave the world the original (not that new age Canadian kid) bizarrely bald young protagonist, Charlie Brown.
Go away, Calliou.
In the heart of California wine country, Sonoma County Airport provides much better access to vineyards in both Sonoma and Napa than other Bay Area airports such as SFO, OAK, and SJC.
Southwest passengers can access Santa Rosa (STS) from Denver, Burbank, Las Vegas, and San Diego. The airport has just two other regular commercial carriers – Alaska and American.
Speaking of Alaska Airlines, Southwest has taken a page out of the growing oneworld alliance member’s book and announced a new ‘Sip and Ship’ program. Similar to Alaska’s Wine Flies Free, Southwest passengers departing select wine country airports will soon be able to check a case of wine at no additional charge. (Selections should be placed in a standard wine shipping box or wine suitcase that meets checked bag requirements.)
It’s unclear which other airports (other than Santa Rosa) will be a part of Sip and Ship, but I’d imagine it may end up being a fairly solid amount of its West Coast destinations, as there is wine up and down the coast.
I’m still waiting on Alaska Airlines’ CEO Ben Minicucci to hit me back about the ‘Wine Run.’
