dailynewsnblog
Alaska Airlines has grown substantially recently. Thanks to gobbling up Hawaiian Airlines and switching that carrier’s flights to the ‘AS’ IATA code, the 
oneworld member’s flights have risen by a quarter year-over-year. Despite this, the vast US aviation industry means that Alaska’s share of the market has only risen by one percentage point to 6%.
According to Ishrion Aviation, the carrier has just added four additional routes. They include the relaunch of a route to Long Beach that the carrier last served in 2015. Its return is unsurprising, as the carrier’s increasingly close competitor, Southwest Airlines, will also begin nonstop flights on the same route.
Alaska Will Introduce This Route To Long Beach
On September 8, Alaska will lift off from 
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) which is comfortably its busiest hub, to Long Beach Airport (LGB). According to the airline, a double daily service will be operated mainly on the 178-seat Boeing 737-900ER. Excluding routes to Hawaii, Alaska will return to the Southern California airport for the first time in 11 years.
As Southwest’s inaugural departure on the route will be over a month earlier on August 4, Alaska loses the initial fight. However, as Southwest will only fly half as often, Alaska will benefit in that sense. There’s a direct relationship between a carrier’s frequency and market share.
Alaska’s Frequency | Seattle To Long Beach* | Long Beach To Seattle** |
|---|---|---|
Daily | 11:38 AM-2:36 PM | 7:00 AM-9:43 AM |
Daily | 6:16 PM-8:59 PM | 3:34 PM-6:17 PM |
** September 8-14 | ** September 8-14 |
The market has been unserved since 2020, when JetBlue Airways pulled out. Now, in 2026, Alaska and Southwest will have a triple daily service. This might seem excessive from the get-go. However, Cirium Diio data shows that Seattle-Long Beach once had up to seven daily services. That frequency was last available in 2013, when Alaska and JetBlue both operated the route.
Despite the number of flights, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) shows that they collectively filled 89% of seats, which was one of the highest results ever. Given so much capacity yet a very high load, they competed massively on price. As such, fares and yields were not great, hence Alaska pulling out two years later. While to a smaller degree, the same situation will now occur with Southwest.
These Three Routes Will Also Begin
On November 1, Alaska will launch three routes: Santa Rosa to Boise, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City. When writing, the frequencies are unknown, as the flights are not bookable yet. That’ll change soon. While subject to confirmation, they will presumably be served using Horizon Air or SkyWest Embraer E175s.
It’ll compete directly with 
American Airlines and American Eagle to Phoenix, which have up to five daily departures. It’ll be the first time the market has had two airlines since last year, when Southwest operated. Due to a weekly service, Southwest only had 12 round-trip flights. They did poorly, with the DOT showing that only 64% of seats were filled.
Flight Alerts: 33 Exciting New Nonstop Routes Launching This Week
See which notable examples made the list this week…
Alaska will face Delta Connection from Salt Lake City. It’ll operate three times daily using SkyWest E175s. Unsurprisingly, it’ll be the first time that this city pair, which Delta resumed in 2019, has ever had two airlines. And while Delta benefits from huge amounts of traffic from behind Salt Lake City, Alaska will be more or less reliant on the local market. 42,160 passengers traveled locally (115 daily), with Delta transporting 86% of them last year. Alaska’s prices will have to be more attractive to counterbalance Delta’s much higher frequency and convenience.
Boise is perhaps the most interesting of the three additions, as it has never had nonstop flights. 13,623 round-trip passengers traveled indirectly last year (37 daily). It was Santa Barbara’s largest unserved market within 600 nautical miles (1,111 km), while the Californian city was Boise’s fourth-largest unserved city within the same distance. Excluding add-ons, the gross return fare was $412. It is bound to make the weekly celebratory new routes article (see this week’s edition).
A Look At Seattle To Long Beach
The DOT indicates that this market only had 19,681 indirect passengers last year, yet will now have three daily nonstop services. Of course, this misses the point, as most people simply drove to other LA airports for nonstop flights. The data does not capture leakage from Long Beach’s catchment area to other airports.
It is much more insightful to look at when nonstop flights previously existed. The best year on record for local Seattle-Long Beach traffic was 2012, when 366,688 passengers traveled. They did not go elsewhere. Despite then having four to seven daily departures, that market only accounted for 15% of the vast point-to-point traffic volume between Seattle and Greater Los Angeles.
