Routes: Delta mini-hub? + Alaska Air in Calif + Spirit in Seattle + More

Is Delta creating a mini-hub at Mineta San Jose? (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Is Delta creating a mini-hub at Mineta San Jose (pictured)? (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

In domestic route news, Alaska is growing at Orange County Airport; Delta starts a non-hub route in the West; Spirit Airlines adds a new city to its network; Southwest eyes new service at Minneapolis/St. Paul; and American will add a Memphis route.

Delta doesn’t often schedule new service on non-hub routes, especially in the domestic market, but that’s what it will do on December 30 when it adds Las Vegas-San Jose flights to its schedule. Delta Connection partner Compass Airlines will fly the route three times a day with 76-passenger E175s. San Jose-Las Vegas is currently a monopoly route for Southwest, which offers multiple daily fights. In addition to this new flight, Delta also operates nonstop flights between SJC and Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis St. Paul, Salt Lake and Seattle. Starting to sound like a mini-hub to us!

Alaska Airlines plans to boost its presence at California’s Orange County Airport next year with a pair of new routes. Effective March 16, Alaska will start once-a-day service from Orange County to Santa Rosa/Sonoma County, California and to Reno/Tahoe, Nevada. The flights will be operated by Horizon Air with 76-seat Q400 turboprops. Meanwhile, Alaska this month started flying four new previously announced routes. Daily Portland-Austin flights are operated for Alaska by SkyWest with a 76-seat Embraer 175; the other three routes — Eugene-San Jose, Los Angeels-Monterey and Boise-Reno — are flown by Horizon Air with 76-seat Q400s.

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Low-cost Spirit Airlines will add Seattle-Tacoma International to its route map next year, making it the first new U.S. airline to start flying there in eight years. The carrier plans to start flying twice a day between SEA and Los Angeles in March, followed by twice-daily SEA-Las Vegas flights in April. Spirit Airlines commenced two daily non-stop flights between Oakland International Airport (OAK) and LAX this week, and has a name for the new route: the “Bay-to-Basin” corridor.

Southwest Airlines will grow at Minneapolis/St. Paul on April 12, 2016, when it adds two daily roundtrips to Baltimore/Washington International.

American Airlines will add new non-stop service on March 3 between Phoenix Sky Harbor and Memphis, a route that currently has no non-stop service. The daily American flight will be operated by Mesa Airlines under the American Eagle banner.