Alaska Airlines has just announced a few new routes out of San Diego, which I find interesting on a couple of levels…
In this post:
Alaska adds San Diego to Eugene, Tampa, and Washington flights
As part of its commitment to California, Alaska Airlines has announced three new routes out of San Diego. Specifically, the airline will start flying from San Diego to Eugene, Tampa, and Washington.
As of June 15, 2023, Alaska will operate a daily nonstop flight between San Diego (SAN) and Washington (IAD) with the following schedule:
AS400 San Diego to Washington departing 8:00AM arriving 4:10PM
AS451 Washington to San Diego departing 10:15AM arriving 12:30PM
The 2,253-mile flight is blocked at 5hr10min eastbound and 5hr15min westbound. Alaska Airlines will use a Boeing 737-900 for the route.
Then as of October 5, 2023, Alaska will operate a daily nonstop flight between San Diego (SAN) and Tampa (TPA) with the following schedule:
AS476 San Diego to Tampa departing 8:40AM arriving 4:25PM
AS599 Tampa to San Diego departing 5:30PM arriving 7:40PM
The 2,087-mile flight is blocked at 4hr45min eastbound and 5hr10min westbound. Alaska Airlines will use a Boeing 737-900 for the route.
Lastly, as of June 15, 2023, Alaska will launch a daily nonstop flight between San Diego (SAN) and Eugene (EUG) with the following schedule:
AS3477 San Diego to Eugene departing 2:30PM arriving 4:50PM
AS3477 Eugene to San Diego departing 11:30AM arriving 1:50PM
The 850-mile flight is blocked at 2hr20min in both directions. Alaska will use an Embraer E175 for the route.
For those transcon routes, is Alaska running out of consecutive flight numbers for the return journey, or…?
My take on Alaska Airlines’ San Diego expansion
This expansion from Alaska Airlines is cool to see on a few levels.
For one, California is a tricky state for many airlines, and particularly for Alaska Airlines. The airline gained market share in California when it took over Virgin America, but it seems like Alaska Airlines executives haven’t exactly known what to do with the state.
Alaska has maintained a strong presence from San Diego for flights to Hawaii, and along the Pacific coast (including to the Pacific Northwest, Mexico, etc.). However, aside from Boston and New York, we haven’t otherwise seen much transcon expansion.
So it’s really cool to see Alaska add two new transcon routes:
- Between San Diego and Washington, Alaska will only be competing against United
- Alaska will be the only airline flying nonstop between San Diego and Tampa; it’s a market some airlines have attempted in the past, but it never lasted
Having grown up in Tampa, I always enjoy seeing how that airport has grown over the years. Going back several years, Alaska didn’t have any flights to Tampa. Now the airline has year-round flights to Seattle, as well as seasonal flights to Los Angeles, Portland, and San Francisco. It’s cool to see a fifth transcontinental gateway added for the airline in Tampa.
At the same time, aside from Seattle to Tampa (which is now served twice daily), it doesn’t seem like Alaska’s service to Tampa has been particularly successful. Portland is now operated once weekly seasonally, which almost fits in the “why bother” camp. Meanwhile Los Angeles and San Francisco service is now seasonal, when in the past it was sometimes offered year-round.
I’m curious to see if this San Diego to Tampa route lasts…
Bottom line
It’s cool to see Alaska Airlines showing California some love, with three new routes out of San Diego. The airline will be launching two new transcon routes, plus a new route to Oregon. This expansion seems a bit random in the context of Alaska’s overall approach to network planning, but here’s to hoping we see the airline continue to look for opportunities in California.
What do you make of Alaska Airlines’ expansion out of San Diego?
Alaska has dropped the seasonal Saturday-only nonstop between Portland and Tampa.
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...
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.
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.
Answer to my prayers living in San Diego with an office in Tampa. I wonder if it will be seasonal like the FLL route.
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.
Alaska does fly from LAX to IAD nonstop.
@ 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.
Military traffic for both IAD and TPA
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.
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.
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.
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.
I miss the SBA-SAN flight.
Me too…
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.
Top 3?
I guess VivaAerobus doesn't exist in your 'Ninstoos' nation.
It's definitely Top 3 already in terms of quality of customer service.
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.
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. :(
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
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.