Alaska Airlines has just announced a few new routes out of San Diego, which I find interesting on a couple of levels…
Continue reading: Alaska Airlines Adds Three San Diego Routes
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I await the comments from all the amateur route planners on OMAAT on why this is genius/stupid, and their many anecdotal reasons why it will succeed/fail.
I like the IAD-SAN route. I enjoyed flying Alaska but I had to really go out of my way to get to JFK
I like the IAD-SAN route. I enjoyed flying Alaska but I had to really go out of my way to get to JFK
Aww Ben, got me excited that “Washington” meant DCA, but alas no. It remains the biggest West Coast city D.C.’s central airport doesn’t serve.
I often fly the direct route on Southwest (via Austin, no plane change) and there are always dozens of thru travelers, so there’s clearly demand. Yes, slot controls and all that, but… maybe someday.
Alaska will be top 3 airline in the nation soon. If they only flew Ninstoos between Seattle Mexico City and Seattle Guadalajara they would be extremely Competitive against Delta/Aeromexico and Volaris.
Great news on the Tampa Route (Just wish Alaska would fly the route sooner)! This means I will no longer need to fly non-stop to Orlando and drive to Tampa.
They also fly SAN to EWR non-stop now 5X a week. It used to be daily. All they need now is a club in SAN.
While DCA is one of the three US airports that are slot controlled, that's now what's keeping AS from running a route like this. DCA like LGA has a perimeter rule, in fact, a tighter one; with few exemptions based on grandfathered service or extreme demand.
SAN would have to qualify for the latter to get an exemption, but the likelihood of that happening is slim. 🙁
Unless Alaska doesn't have a route from Los Angeles to IAD, they should fly a route from San Diego to LAX to IAD and vice versa. American airlines used to do that and that plane would leave with 30-60 pax then top off 100% with the LAX pax to IAD. SAN is nothing but an endline destination city unless ALASKA wants to connect flts to Mexico thereby using San Diego as a mini hub.
Answer to my prayers living in San Diego with an office in Tampa. I wonder if it will be seasonal like the FLL route.
@ MR Flyer, you must not be from SD. As someone who flies this route every other week, the UA flights are usually fully booked due to all the DoD traffic. Maybe AS picked up a GSA contact for this fare pair to justify the flights. Also, when AA did the pit stop in LA, they were using DC10s or 767s with larger capacity than UA's 737s.
Alaska needs to expand to Medford and Oregon . A lot of people in Southern Oregon vacation and do business in Southern California. A good many people around here ate from Southern California. Alaska is missing opertunity by not serving the Southern Oregon market.
They have a contract with the Aspire Lounge there, though only for the Plus tier members and only if they are traveling on AS that day. A "real" lounge would be sweet.
Alaska airlines reduced it's flights from Sacramento. Notably the flights to Hawaii. They left the market once southwest came in. But now southwest has cancelled the SMF to Maui route. Even the number of flights to Seattle are such that you can't really connect via Seattle without waiting a long time. The other issue is that there is no connectivity from Sacramento to SFO to take advantage of their hub there. I'm hoping San Diego will be a better hub for Sacramento based travelers as I noticed they added additional flights to Sacramento from San Diego.
I wish they had their own lounge too, but the Alaska Lounge+ membership works at the Aspire lounge which is right near the Alaska gates.
Alaska has dropped the seasonal Saturday-only nonstop between Portland and Tampa.