I would think SJC-BOS has a decent shot, plenty of traffic to the bay area from BOS and competition is limited to B6

I think AS will do the only thing that makes sense here which is to continue adding to SEA. They said that SEA allocates gate space based on ASM, so the only way to keep DL out of more gate access is put all the resources in SEA. That's essentially what B6 is doing at BOS, although to a smaller degree. And that seems like what they are doing based on OAG threads the last few weeks. There isn't going to be anything fancy. Just continued expansion of SEA hub and adding PAE service to keep AS the most relevant carrier in Seattle.

At some point, we will have a recession and DL will have to scale back its empire building ambition and AS will have more breathing room.

EA CO AS wrote:

Passedv1 wrote:

Yes...new market announcements coming soon. No doubt.

SEA-CLT and SFO-CLT is my guess.

It's not CLT.

Why is it not CLT?

How about flights to PEK, PVG, NRT, ICN, or TPE?

Buffalo please!

axiom wrote:

enilria wrote:

flyguy84 wrote:

Well, their SFO experiment epically failed.

I think they need to add at least 3 SFO markets to change the impression the focus City there is in trouble. I doubt they will do that. 2 or less I think.

What would they even add? They've tried the obvious midcon routes. Long and thin transcons? Great niche, I'm sure...

I think they will add something because they can't possibly be ready to throw in the towel yet, so more likely they will throw a bone with 1 or maybe two new routes. I think less than 3 is just perfuming the pig and is born out of desperation to find something that will work.

csweet wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

Passedv1 wrote:

Yes...new market announcements coming soon. No doubt.

SEA-CLT and SFO-CLT is my guess.

It's not CLT.

Why is it not CLT?

EA CO AS has more information than we do, so if he says its not CLT...its not, whether you like it or not.

Balloonchaser wrote:

Not in this announcement.. But in the future, does anyone else see Alaska going into the smaller airports like KISP, KPVD, KBDL, KSWF, KBTV, etc?

BDL MAYBE, all of the others, no.

I would like to see LAX-PIT and or SAN-PIT but my crack pipe is currently empty.

Dillingham, Cold Bay, Sand Point, Saint George, Saint Paul and Dutch? There's a group rate for all of them right now, with additional flights into King Salmon as a bonus...

...edit to add, is there anything in the.QX contracts that world prevent.ALK from owning and operating another regional?

any chance that they go to 2x a day SEA-TPA?

Kidding aside, ANC-MSP world be fantastic. Well, for me at least. I doubt it world make sense as both Delta and Sun County already fly it.

Of course, Delta uses the 757 which, as we all know, has magical powers to make things work that no other aircraft can possibly match, so there is that...

ucdtim17 wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

What's left intra-California? Return of OAK-SNA?

OAK-SAN/SNA/LAX/BUR. OAK is the fourth largest airport in the state and they barely touch it, with zero intrastate service. They’re spending a lot of money on advertising in the east bay, including Oakland-specific advertising, but making no attempt to leverage that with any service. They’re clearly flailing at SFO; at some point their darts on a wall strategy has to land on trying new OAK service.

It's actually now the fifth largest. SJC passed it in monthly passengers in November, and last month in yearly passengers.

jbs2886 wrote:

csweet wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

It's not CLT.

Why is it not CLT?

EA CO AS has more information than we do, so if he says its not CLT...its not, whether you like it or not.

thank you for the clarification

holeham wrote:

any chance that they go to 2x a day SEA-TPA?

SEA-TPA goes double daily over the winter holiday period -- that's something. The route is bursting at the seams at 1/daily. May be the route with the highest load factor in the AS system, or up there, to be sure.

jbs2886 wrote:

csweet wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

It's not CLT.

Why is it not CLT?

EA CO AS has more information than we do, so if he says its not CLT...its not, whether you like it or not.

Someone posted this in another thread recently too. They said AS looked at CLT and decided against it.

New markets you say? Maybe sight seeing and acrobatic flights in their proven and suitable q400s? that should be interesting

(I’m sorry lol)

BoeingGuy wrote:

jbs2886 wrote:

csweet wrote:

Why is it not CLT?

EA CO AS has more information than we do, so if he says its not CLT...its not, whether you like it or not.

Someone posted this in another thread recently too. They said AS looked at CLT and decided against it.

(Not directed at you, Boeing)

Why would AS fly those two routes? AA already flies the crap out of those routes, and AS passengers wouldn’t be able to get AAdvantage miles. They’d be competing directly against their “partner”. Now, if it was a route that AA DIDNT fly to CLT, maybe.

holeham wrote:

any chance that they go to 2x a day SEA-TPA?

It'll go 2x daily in the winter months.

I really wish they would re-start STL-PDX. Those flights, from the LF numbers I have seen were in the the Low/Mid 90's!

PDX-RDU also seems like a good candidate, DL stated earlier that they weren’t interested in that route and instead said that they would put more frequencies on SLC/SEA.

klm617 wrote:

SEA-GRR I could see.

Really? How about SEA-CIU. SEA-IMT, or SEA-CMX?

SEA to GRR is too far for an e-jet and doesn’t have enough demand for anything bigger. I predict DSM on an e-jet will be announced.

EA CO AS wrote:

SFOtoORD wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

VX was profitable a couple of quarters during the most profitable time in aviation history. Yet they were unprofitable for several years while every other carrier was printing a billion dollars a quarter.

Good thing AS always has an excuse for their $2B purchase.

Funny how none of those reasons are anything other than "excuses" to VX fanboys who still can't get over their loss. Of course, had these supposedly loyal VX customers paid a few bucks more each time they flew them, they may have remained independent.

Oh well...

Pretty sad that Team AS best argument is casting aspersions at the airline they bought and it’s customers. Perhaps that explains the initial struggles at SFO.

BoeingGuy wrote:

jbs2886 wrote:

csweet wrote:

Why is it not CLT?

EA CO AS has more information than we do, so if he says its not CLT...its not, whether you like it or not.

Someone posted this in another thread recently too. They said AS looked at CLT and decided against it.

Let me elaborate; I cannot state definitively, with 100% certainty, that it’s not CLT. What I should have said is that while I do not have the final list of new markets yet, what I do know is AS continues to look at CLT often and based on a number of factors, continues to say “pass,” and that was in a far better fuel and revenue environment. With both markedly worse than anytime in the past 3-5 years, if AS didn’t lainch CLT back then, they won’t anytime soon.

Of course our planning people could always turn that on its head and announce dailies to CLT from SEA, SFO, and PDX, but it’s just really, really unlikely.

KLMatSJC wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

What's left intra-California? Return of OAK-SNA?

OAK-SAN/SNA/LAX/BUR. OAK is the fourth largest airport in the state and they barely touch it, with zero intrastate service. They’re spending a lot of money on advertising in the east bay, including Oakland-specific advertising, but making no attempt to leverage that with any service. They’re clearly flailing at SFO; at some point their darts on a wall strategy has to land on trying new OAK service.

It's actually now the fifth largest. SJC passed it in monthly passengers in November, and last month in yearly passengers.

I missed that news. I thought OAK had a more comfortable lead, but guess not.

Either way, even if they have zero interest in ex-OAK business, OAK is still one of the largest markets for those southern California airports (#1 BUR, #8 SNA, #10 SAN; not top 10 at LAX but 613k annual passengers). How compelling is your SAN "focus city" supposed to be if your offer against ~hourly WN 737 service SAN-OAK is 0.00 flights?

ucdtim17 wrote:

KLMatSJC wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

OAK-SAN/SNA/LAX/BUR. OAK is the fourth largest airport in the state and they barely touch it, with zero intrastate service. They’re spending a lot of money on advertising in the east bay, including Oakland-specific advertising, but making no attempt to leverage that with any service. They’re clearly flailing at SFO; at some point their darts on a wall strategy has to land on trying new OAK service.

It's actually now the fifth largest. SJC passed it in monthly passengers in November, and last month in yearly passengers.

I missed that news. I thought OAK had a more comfortable lead, but guess not.

Either way, even if they have zero interest in ex-OAK business, OAK is still one of the largest markets for those southern California airports (#1 BUR, #8 SNA, #10 SAN; not top 10 at LAX but 613k annual passengers). How compelling is your SAN "focus city" supposed to be if your offer against ~hourly WN 737 service SAN-OAK is 0.00 flights?

Perhaps you answered your own question. Why would AS jump into a route with existing hourly flights on a competitor like WN?

N592NW wrote:

SEA to GRR is too far for an e-jet and doesn’t have enough demand for anything bigger. I predict DSM on an e-jet will be announced.

SEA-GRR is only 35nm farther than SFO-MSN and United is able to operate EJets on that route. I’m not sure how much 35nm matters(not even 10 minutes flying time), but if United makes MSN work, I don’t see why GRR would be an issue.

dbo861 wrote:

N592NW wrote:

SEA to GRR is too far for an e-jet and doesn’t have enough demand for anything bigger. I predict DSM on an e-jet will be announced.

SEA-GRR is only 35nm farther than SFO-MSN and United is able to operate EJets on that route. I’m not sure how much 35nm matters(not even 10 minutes flying time), but if United makes MSN work, I don’t see why GRR would be an issue.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=SEA-GRR,+SEA-MSN

185 miles further, not 35 miles.

joeljack wrote:

dbo861 wrote:

N592NW wrote:

SEA to GRR is too far for an e-jet and doesn’t have enough demand for anything bigger. I predict DSM on an e-jet will be announced.

SEA-GRR is only 35nm farther than SFO-MSN and United is able to operate EJets on that route. I’m not sure how much 35nm matters(not even 10 minutes flying time), but if United makes MSN work, I don’t see why GRR would be an issue.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=SEA-GRR,+SEA-MSN

185 miles further, not 35 miles.

United operate SFO-MSN with ejets, which is 1772nm according to gcmap.com. SEA-GRR is 1807nm, only 35nm farther.

AirFiero wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

KLMatSJC wrote:

It's actually now the fifth largest. SJC passed it in monthly passengers in November, and last month in yearly passengers.

I missed that news. I thought OAK had a more comfortable lead, but guess not.

Either way, even if they have zero interest in ex-OAK business, OAK is still one of the largest markets for those southern California airports (#1 BUR, #8 SNA, #10 SAN; not top 10 at LAX but 613k annual passengers). How compelling is your SAN "focus city" supposed to be if your offer against ~hourly WN 737 service SAN-OAK is 0.00 flights?

Perhaps you answered your own question. Why would AS jump into a route with existing hourly flights on a competitor like WN?

Well what's the point of trying anything? They're on lots of routes with heavy competition. Perhaps it is indeed the case that through the years OAK is always in the exact sweet spot of being a large enough market to attract heavy service from WN, but not large enough to entice AS to offer service. AS is happy to run loss leading planes on other routes to try to expand network connectivity and make inroads against WN, but not here. Through recession and boom, the exact appropriate level of service at OAK is always 4x mainline to SEA, 3x QX to PDX and the assorted Hawaii routes.

(Although it should be noted these rules only apply in the past decade. Prior to that, before they were trying to be California's airline or #mostwestcoast, they had up to 6x mainline on PDX-OAK. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

dbo861 wrote:

joeljack wrote:

dbo861 wrote:

SEA-GRR is only 35nm farther than SFO-MSN and United is able to operate EJets on that route. I’m not sure how much 35nm matters(not even 10 minutes flying time), but if United makes MSN work, I don’t see why GRR would be an issue.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=SEA-GRR,+SEA-MSN

185 miles further, not 35 miles.

United operate SFO-MSN with ejets, which is 1772nm according to gcmap.com. SEA-GRR is 1807nm, only 35nm farther.

Sorry, I misread! My bad.

ucdtim17 wrote:

Well what's the point of trying anything? They're on lots of routes with heavy competition. )

That comment was a bit hyperbolic. I made a clear point that starting new service in the face of existing hourly service would be really difficult. Aren’t there better battles for AS to fight? And OAK is one of WNs biggest stations. Additionally, I think it was tphuang, our resident stat guru, who said that yields intra-California are not good. Why get into a battle like that?

I also think AS could start more service from OAK with e-jets: OAK-FAT/SBA/PSP etc.

PHX-Cali is a huge hole in the network. Arizona is literally right next to California, which is their area of concentration as of late and we haven't seen any new markets. PHX-SFO was operated for 30 days in 2018 but we haven't heard anything about it being resumed either full time or for another month this season. Huge let down.

allegiantflyer wrote:

PHX-Cali is a huge hole in the network. Arizona is literally right next to California, which is their area of concentration as of late and we haven't seen any new markets. PHX-SFO was operated for 30 days in 2018 but we haven't heard anything about it being resumed either full time or for another month this season. Huge let down.

PHX-California is super competitive between AA & WN. AS is also gate space limited in PHX at the moment so at best they could add 1-2 flights a day to SJC/SFO and maybe SAN but beyond that; its already tapped out pretty well.

AirFiero wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

Well what's the point of trying anything? They're on lots of routes with heavy competition. )

That comment was a bit hyperbolic. I made a clear point that starting new service in the face of existing hourly service would be really difficult. Aren’t there better battles for AS to fight? And OAK is one of WNs biggest stations. Additionally, I think it was tphuang, our resident stat guru, who said that yields intra-California are not good. Why get into a battle like that?

The reason it has hourly service is it's a very large market, with only one operator. It's just in this odd no man's land - not as large (or competitive) as SFO-LAX, yet far larger than most of the other markets they've opened in the past few years.

I'm sure it's the case that they look at their intra-CA numbers on other routes, figure in response from WN at OAK and decide it'd be even worse there. It just seems like an odd equilibrium to land and stay on, even as they make a big advertising push in the area and keep failing on other routes.

klm617 wrote:

SEA-GRR I could see.

This will NEVER work if SEA-IND couldn't

psa1011 wrote:

I also think AS could start more service from OAK with e-jets: OAK-FAT/SBA/PSP etc.

I have been wondering about the viability of a middle of California “hub”, including a concentration of flights from smaller markets to the north and south. I’m not sure AS would do that, though. They have several p2p routes such as MRY-SAN on ejets. Airlines seem to be getting away from flights like the ones you listed above and are using ejets to go directly to hubs, focus cities or other routes where a smaller jet can potentially be profitable. Would routes like OAK-FAT/SBA/PSP be viable?

alasizon wrote:

allegiantflyer wrote:

PHX-Cali is a huge hole in the network. Arizona is literally right next to California, which is their area of concentration as of late and we haven't seen any new markets. PHX-SFO was operated for 30 days in 2018 but we haven't heard anything about it being resumed either full time or for another month this season. Huge let down.

PHX-California is super competitive between AA & WN. AS is also gate space limited in PHX at the moment so at best they could add 1-2 flights a day to SJC/SFO and maybe SAN but beyond that; its already tapped out pretty well.

It’s actually not that competitive IMO. LAX-PHX maybe yes. But fares SAN/SFO/SJC are usually 200+ minimum for a relatively short flight, AA/WN prints money on the PHX-Cali flights, AS could too.

ucdtim17 wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

Well what's the point of trying anything? They're on lots of routes with heavy competition. )

That comment was a bit hyperbolic. I made a clear point that starting new service in the face of existing hourly service would be really difficult. Aren’t there better battles for AS to fight? And OAK is one of WNs biggest stations. Additionally, I think it was tphuang, our resident stat guru, who said that yields intra-California are not good. Why get into a battle like that?

The reason it has hourly service is it's a very large market, with only one operator. It's just in this odd no man's land - not as large (or competitive) as SFO-LAX, yet far larger than most of the other markets they've opened in the past few years.

I'm sure it's the case that they look at their intra-CA numbers on other routes, figure in response from WN at OAK and decide it'd be even worse there. It just seems like an odd equilibrium to land and stay on, even as they make a big advertising push in the area and keep failing on other routes.

It will be interesting to check out the numbers of oak pdx and oak sea later this year. Or even sjc pdx. Wn has added a lot of capacity there. If they don’t suffer much yield drop there, it will be a really bad sign from as.

And the big hit for as will be when wn enters Hawaii.

ucdtim17 wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

Well what's the point of trying anything? They're on lots of routes with heavy competition. )

That comment was a bit hyperbolic. I made a clear point that starting new service in the face of existing hourly service would be really difficult. Aren’t there better battles for AS to fight? And OAK is one of WNs biggest stations. Additionally, I think it was tphuang, our resident stat guru, who said that yields intra-California are not good. Why get into a battle like that?

The reason it has hourly service is it's a very large market, with only one operator. It's just in this odd no man's land - not as large (or competitive) as SFO-LAX, yet far larger than most of the other markets they've opened in the past few years.

I'm sure it's the case that they look at their intra-CA numbers on other routes, figure in response from WN at OAK and decide it'd be even worse there. It just seems like an odd equilibrium to land and stay on, even as they make a big advertising push in the area and keep failing on other routes.

There is similar service on routes like SJC-LAX, with various airlines that have jumped in and out on more than one occasion. Either AA or UA recently dropped that route. VX flew it for about a year, then dropped it. AS could give it a shot, but AGAIN, starting off against hourly service is quite a hill to climb.

For reference, Number of flights on a Monday on WN to LAX
OAK 14
SJC 11
SFO 10

To be fair, AS walked into WN hourly service with SAN-SJC and SAN-SMF and SJC-SNA, so yeah they could do OAK-SAN too.

OAK for whatever reason is just not a favorable yield city- B6 evacuated what was once a big-time schedule there long ago; Level has quickly moved its BCN flight to SFO from OAK; DL comes close to not bothering (no flights to SEA or LAX or MSP)

SLCUT2777 wrote:

klm617 wrote:

SEA-GRR I could see.

This will NEVER work if SEA-IND couldn't

Umm, SEA-IND is still an active route and is working extremely well......

Could GRR work? Not with a 737 that's for sure.

zackary747 wrote:

SLCUT2777 wrote:

klm617 wrote:

SEA-GRR I could see.

This will NEVER work if SEA-IND couldn't

Umm, SEA-IND is still an active route and is working quite well......

Could GRR work? Not with a 737 that's for sure.

I think MSN would be considered before GRR...

FA9295 wrote:

zackary747 wrote:

SLCUT2777 wrote:

This will NEVER work if SEA-IND couldn't

Umm, SEA-IND is still an active route and is working quite well......

Could GRR work? Not with a 737 that's for sure.

I think MSN would be considered before GRR...

I have to agree with that. MSN is also in range for the E175 while I believe GRR is just outside of that range. MSN seems to be the stronger candidate for SEA as well.

Passedv1 wrote:

Yes...new market announcements coming soon. No doubt.

SEA-CLT and SFO-CLT is my guess.

In answer to an employee question on the internal webpage, they confirmed it would not be CLT but they were not yet ready to announce whatever new city they were looking at.

What about Alaska Air in the Caribbean?

Probably more instate routes in California.