Alaska Airlines Expands Its Operations from California

Alaska Airlines has announced plans to expand its operations in the State of California with a number of new routes to be operated on its behalf by affiliate carrier Horizon Air using Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 turboprops. Its new activity includes daily non-stop services from San Diego to Monterey and Santa Rosa, a twice daily link to Fresno and also a twice daily flight between San Jose and Reno. The new services will all commence during the first week of June.

Alaska Airlines already provides domestic links from San Diego to Honolulu, Maui, Portland and Seattle-Tacoma alongside international connections to Puerto Vallarta and San Jose Del Cabo in Mexico. It is currently the fifth largest carrier at San Diego International Airport behind Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines with a 6.7 per cent share of the available weekly capacity. There is currently no competition on any of the three new routes from the airport, although Southwest Airlines does compete between San Jose and Reno, a market of an estimated 74,000 O&D passengers.

To support the new Santa Rosa - San Diego route, Alaska Airlines is to modify its existing schedule from the city, famous for its vineyards and located approximately 55 miles north of San Francisco. It will discontinue its existing up to eleven times daily service from Santa Rosa to Las Vegas from June 3, 2012 although a third rotation will be introduced to Los Angeles, which will operate four times weekly through to August 25, 2012 and will increase the frequency from 13 to 17 flights per week.