Virgin America will add SFO-Orlando flights next year. (Image: Virgin America)
In domestic route news, Alaska Airlines and Virgin America provide details of their new San Francisco flights; American Airlines adds routes at Washington Reagan National and Phoenix, but drops one from Los Angeles; Delta adds a pair of Florida routes; OneJet expands at Pittsburgh; and Frontier will resume seasonal Cleveland-West Coast service.
Alaska Airlines has announced details of the new San Francisco services it mentioned earlier this week. On June 14, Alaska’s Virgin America unit will begin daily A320 flights from SFO to Orlando – but you’ll have to wake up early, because they depart SFO at 6:30 a.m.
On June 15, Alaska will expand its California Corridor presence by launching three daily SFO-Orange County roundtrips, increasing to four on July 18. (You might recall that Virgin America jumped into the SFO-SNA market in 2009, only to jump back out less than a year later in the face of stiff competition from Southwest.). Also on July 18, Alaska adds a pair of daily San Francisco-Minneapolis-St. Paul roundtrips. The Orange County and MSP flights will use 76-seat SkyWest E175s with first class, premium class and main cabin seating.
Delta is beefing up its east coast presence with new service from Boston to Florida. On February 18, Delta will begin twice-daily service from Boston to Tampa, and on February 17 it starts weekend-only (Saturday and Sunday) flights from Boston to Ft. Myers. (JetBlue also flies both routes.) Both routes will use Airbus A319s.
An American Eagle/Republic E175 will fly from Washington D.C. to Northwest Arkansas. (Image: American Airlines)
American Airlines plans to expand at Washington Reagan National in the spring. On April 4, it will kick off new daily American Eagle/Republic Airlines service from DCA to Northwest Arkansas Airport in Fayetteville (near Walmart headquarters) with an Embraer 175. And on the same date it will begin twice-daily American Eagle/PSA Airlines service from DCA to Grand Rapids, Mich., with CRJ 200s; and daily Eagle/Republic roundtrips from DCA to Pensacola, Fla., with an E175.
Meanwhile, American this month began new American Eagle/SkyWest daily CRJ 700 service between its Phoenix hub and Santa Fe, N.M. American used to fly to Santa Fe from Los Angeles, but discontinued that service in 2015. It also serves Santa Fe from Dallas/Ft. Worth. And speaking of Los Angeles, American has decided to discontinue its three-year-old non-stop service between LAX and Pittsburgh as of February 14.
OneJet uses small Hawker 400XPs on short-haul routes. (Image: OneJet)
One airline that’s growing at Pittsburgh is OneJet, which operates small business jets in regional markets under public charter rules. OneJet plans to begin daily PIT-Richmond service March 1, followed by daily PIT-Albany flights March 22. It already flies from Pittsburgh to Hartford, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Louisville and Cincinnati.
Frontier Airlines, which introduced seasonal flights last year from Cleveland to four West Coast cities, is bringing them back in 2017. In April, Frontier will add service from Cleveland to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland, with flights operating three or four days a week and fares starting as low as $79 one way.
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