The Alaska-Delta rivalry at Seattle is generating lots of new passengers. (Image: Jim Glab)
Just as Delta has been adding a number of new routes at Seattle-Tacoma in a tit-for-tat rivalry with its erstwhile “partner” Alaska Airlines, it has adopted the same tactic following Southwest Airlines’ announcement that it will begin service this fall from Oakland to Delta’s Atlanta hub.
Less than two weeks after Southwest said it will launch daily Oakland-Atlanta flights on November 1 comes word that Delta will start flying the same route effective October 1. Delta already serves the Oakland-Los Angeles and Oakland-Salt Lake City markets.
By the way, Southwest tells us that when its new Oakland-Atlanta route starts, it will discontinue its existing service between San Francisco International and Atlanta.
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Meanwhile, ultra-low-cost Spirit Airlines is growing at Oakland as well, with plans to launch twice-daily OAK-Los Angeles service November 12. Spirit already flies from Oakland to Las Vegas, Chicago and Dallas/Ft. Worth.
Getting back to Seattle, Delta just announced four new routes from Sea-Tac, including daily service to Boston starting next April; daily flights to Orlando beginning December 19; three daily roundtrips to Pasco, Wash., as of November 1; and three a day to Victoria, B.C. starting April 4, 2016. In addition, Delta said on August 1 it will increase its Seattle-Bozeman/Yellowstone, Mont,. service from once a week to once a day.
Alaska Airlines’ next round of expansion at SEA comes July 1, when it will begin daily non-stops to Milwaukee and Oklahoma City.
The ongoing rivalry between Alaska and Delta is giving Seattle-area residents dozens of new air travel options as they pile on new routes. In fact, passenger traffic at Sea-Tac is expected to reach 42 million this year, a gain of 8 million from 2014 levels, making it one of the nation’s fastest-growing airports.
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In the fall of 1963 I went as a freshman to college in Baltimore. I took a TWA flight from Oakland, then on to Salt Lake, Denver, Chicago, and Washington/National. The next time I booked it, I figured I’d get fewer stops with TWA if I started in SF. Guess what? We flew to Oakland first. It took about half a day (13 hours?). From here in very Northern California—TSA, driving, one transfer in SFO—it takes about almost same number of hours to get to the East Coast nowadays. Ha.
Someone else remembers that SFO to OAK flight! In the 70’s when I first started flying I booked a flight out of SFO to the east coast. I was surprised when the flight landed in Oakland for a brief layover before continuing.
SMF—and similar airports—should be stripped of their “international” status. It’s a waste of tax money to maintain the facilities and programs required by international flights that go wildly underused. It’s much more efficient to funnel international traffic through busier (and more profitable) airports.
Yes, all this route waffling creates chaos with schedules, but it’s called the “free market” and it simply follows the endless calibrations and recalibrations of products and prices to generate wealth. Be glad the government doesn’t totally control airlines and route decisions like it did long ago.
Flights and routes from SFO and OAK are always changing. I remember a few decades ago when the shortest scheduled commercial flight in the United States was from SFO to OAK. Surely it must have been the continuing portion of a flight that originated far from the Bay Area, but I think it was actually possible to book a flight on this ultra-short journey. I think the shortest commercial flights in the U.S. now are to or between islands, like Martha’s Vineyard or the Hawaiian islands.
Earlier this year, I booked a OAK-ATL red-eye on Delta for late July… but then they cancelled their service (and so they are bringing _BACK_ their service this Fall, not initiating it).
As far as I was concerned, I paid for a NON-STOP from the Bay Area to Atlanta… as far as they were concerned, I paid for a trip from OAK to Atlanta and they can not only add stops but connections so long as they do it by making me leave earlier… in this case, by adding an evening commuter jet hop from OAK to LAX where I connect to an LAX-ATL red-eye. Them adding the service again in the Fall adds insult to injury,
I love this! But Sacramento Intl. needs some love, big time.