When I read the headline about Horizon pulling the Arcata/Eureka-Seattle route in the Eureka Times Standard this morning, my heart dropped. Losing the DL flights to SLC last year was hard enough. I was finally able to get to MCI and EWR in less than 8 hours and avoid wx delays in SFO. I have flown ACV-PDX/SEA several times a year since I moved to Humboldt County in January 2001. Back then QX flew three SEA-PDX-ACV/RDD-PDX-SEA flights a day on the Q200. Some flights stopped in RDD first and others ACV first. Back then the schedule was far more convenient. There was an early morning flight, a early afternoon flight and a late afternoon flight. That allowed me to work almost a full day on Thursday or Friday and be in Seattle before 10pm. Sunday, I would fly home on the last southbound flight of the day. That made for a great weekend.
When QX added ACV/RDD-LAX flights and cut the northbound route to PDX down to once a day the schedule stopped being convenient. I understand QX needs to keep aircraft in the air all day, but the only northbound flight left ACV around noon and got into SEA too late for connections to the Midwest and East Coast. Last December, I had a 6 hour layover in SEA when I flew ACV-FAI. What would work better would be a first thing in the morning northbound and late evening southbound to ACV/RDD. That allows for optimum connections to/from all over the world.
Not sure how much I will be able to fly on AS/QX anymore. I don't fly to SoCal often. I expect that flying QX between ACV-SEA/PDX via LAX will be prohibitively expensive. I have been a frequent flier member since 1995 when I went to the U of O and flew out of EUG regularly. Planning on flying up to FAI next December. Guess I will drive up to MFR and fly out of there. A long drive after a long flight will not be fun. Other than that, I guess I will ditch my AS credit card and get a UA credit card. Maybe UAEx will add flights to PDX like they did out of OTH and LMT.
What bad news this morning. What else could go wrong?