It's Official: Southwest Airlines Now Has Redeye Flights On 5 Routes, With More To Come

How to prepare for a long-haul flight to Europe: Top tips

Looking for to explore Europe? These essential tips can make for a smooth flight across the pond.

Southwest Airlines is officially operating redeye flights.

The company announced it planned to start operating some routes overnight in July, and the first regularly scheduled redeyes in its 50-plus-year history touched down on Friday morning.

"While redeye flights will make up a small portion of Southwest’s overall schedule, they bring additional connectivity and more itineraries to transcontinental and Hawaii markets. As an example, Southwest will offer Honolulu (HNL) to Las Vegas (LAS) in April, and this one redeye flight increases the number of itineraries the airline can offer Customers by 50% as they connect to other parts of the network," the airline said in a statement.

Currently, Southwest has one redeye flight on each of the following five routes:

• Las Vegas (LAS) to Baltimore/Washington (BWI)
• Las Vegas (LAS) to Orlando (MCO)
• Los Angeles (LAX) to Baltimore/Washington (BWI)
• Los Angeles (LAX) to Nashville (BNA)
• Phoenix (PHX) to Baltimore/Washington (BWI)

The airline said it plans to increase the number of redeyes it operates in the coming months, up to 33 per day in June.

Overnight flights aren't the only changes at Southwest. The airline also plans to introduced assigned seating and extra legroom seating starting early next year.

The airline also recently announced an interline partnership with Icelandair at BWI, meaning passengers can connect between Southwest and Icelandair flights on the same ticket.

Zach Wichter is a travel reporter and writes the Cruising Altitude column for USA TODAY. He is based in New York and you can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com.