Several days ago, Southwest Airlines announced plans to launch service to a new state, and I don’t think this should come as a huge surprise to anyone. I want to provide an update, as flights are now on sale, meaning that schedules have also been published, so we have more details.
Continue reading: Southwest Airlines Will Fly To Anchorage, Alaska: Big Deal Or Obvious Expansion?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
No big deal. Southwest now can fly red eyes so this makes sense. Also ANC is no big deal. On the map, it looks dramatic but not much different from WN expanding to another US city. Maybe a little colder but ANC is not that cold. Fairbanks is really cold and may present a few operational challenges in the winter.
As an A-List and Companion Pass member: I cannot imagine spending this amount of time on an overnight flight on Southwest, and have no desire to purchase the product. I've flown cross-country on daytime flights with them more times than I can count over the years, but a red-eye to Alaska is a bridge too far. I'd much rather fly with Delta or Alaska on a distance that great and also avoid a red-eye on the return, even if it meant an overnight layover in Seattle.
How has Southwest been doing recently in Hawaii? Last I heard it was a huge money pit
I don’t do red eyes on short eastbound domestic flights and I live on the west coast. For those who don’t mind these stipulations, good on them. I’ll stick with whatever blandly named mileage program AS calls it.
ANC has been on WN's radar since the early 2010s. This isn't surprising. They've long had aspirations to stretch their fleet and expand to more international and longer-haul domestic markets. With the scope clause improvements for their flight crews, this is all being made possible. Sadly the Hawaii experiment has been a disaster. But what did you expect from Andrew who put HA into the disaster that they were and then tried to do a repeat at WN?!? Shame that WN has kept him around so long when it's clear he's a major part of their problem.
Southwest isn't the least comfortable carrier out there, but with no food options and limited drinks, it's not how I'd prefer to do a red-eye or even just the 6 hour flight in the first place (I've done their handful of past trans-con routes - not recommended).
Interesting option tho for people who work in AK, so they don't have to travel to the west coast first for the more common routings.
Hawaii didn't work as proposed because WN went in w/ the intention to take out HA -and they partially succeeded. While WN's Hawaii strategies hurt WN as well, WN survived.
and let's not forget that intra- Hawaii and lack of redeyes made Hawaii a challenge for WN.
They have scaled back intra-Hawaii and have added redeyes which puts them on a much more equal footing as other carriers serving Hawaii to mainland.
The same principles will apply to Alaska.
WN should do just fine there.
I travel to Alaska regularly from Denver and I can't imagine putting up with Southwest's lack of first class and premium seating, and with no food options, on a flight of that length. (Yes, I know they added extra legroom fake "premium" seating, but it's still an inferior product.)
But one-time vacation travelers probably won't care about any of that. Southwest is business-friendly enough for short-haul flights, and this will give frequent fliers in Rapid Rewards a vacation destination.