The unprecedented growth of William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) continues, thanks in large part to its ever-increasing international “connections.”

Liliana Rambo, General Manager at Hobby Airport, and her staff recently celebrated three years since Hobby’s West Concourse, including the Federal Inspection Service (FIS) terminal, opened to serve six international destinations. In October 2015, the new concourse opened with a Southwest Airlines flight bound for Cancun, Mexico. And Hobby has been flying high ever since.

The award-winning 280,000-square-foot complex originally included a five-gate concourse, the FIS, Southwest Airlines ticketing hall and an expanded security checkpoint.

In those three highly successful years since that inaugural flight, traffic has seen a sizable increase of 24 percent, additional destinations have been added, and more are to come. In 2018, Hobby averaged nearly 42,000 passengers per month.

Hobby offers flights via Southwest Airlines to:

• Aruba
• Belize
• Cabo San Lucas/Los Cabos
• Cancun
• Grand Cayman (route added in 2018)
• Liberia, Costa Rica
• Mexico City
• Montego Bay
• Puerta Vallarta
• Punta Cana
• San Jose, Costa Rica

Southwest now offers 176 daily departures from Hobby Airport (both domestic and international).

In June 2019, total nonstop service to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic will be the latest destination available to travelers on a seasonal, Saturday-only basis.

Rambo said the team “is so pleased to be able to assist the traveling public with these options and opportunities” and they celebrated three successful years with cake and snacks while reflecting on past accomplishments and looking forward to future advancements.

Traci Rutoski manages International Services and is responsible for the international passenger movement through Customs & Border Protection (CBP) processing in the FIS. “It’s our responsibility,” Rutoski said, “ to provide excellent customer service for international arriving passengers. Our team works hard to meet and exceed the expectations of all of our passengers as Hobby continues to make deliberate moves toward achieving 5-star status.”

In 2018, Hobby Airport was awarded a 4-star rating by Skytrax, a leading global air transport rating organization. Ratings are determined through direct and professional analysis of industry quality standards and the Houston Airports' vision is ultimately to provide customers with a 5-star experience. And 2018 marked the third straight year Hobby Airport earned a 4-star rating, with the facility and services earning nearly 140 scores of 4.5 or higher on its detailed checklist covering 44 categories.

Hobby’s partnership with Southwest ensures that Houston’s strong connection to the Americas gets even stronger.