N830MH

I think I'm actually agree with you. They should try to go to MEM or PIT. As for JFK, JFK is very congestion and there's no new slots available. Airspace is full. Try to fly ISP or SWF instead. It's very hard to landed into JFK.

As for RDU, I think there is plenty room for another carrier. They can go to RDU. I think AS or G4 will build up. It will became focus city.

dave1013

From email just received...

Alaska Airlines and Virgin America today announce new daily, nonstop service between Portland, Oregon, and New York's John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) beginning Nov. 6; Portland and Detroit beginning Aug. 30; and Los Angeles and Philadelphia beginning Sept. 1.

"Alaska Airlines continues to expand service from our West Coast hubs by adding convenient, nonstop flights to popular destinations like New York City, Philadelphia and Detroit," said John Kirby, vice president of capacity planning at Alaska Airlines. "Whether traveling for business or leisure, we continue to meet the needs of our valued guests with more than 800 daily flights in over 300 markets originating from the West Coast."

With this new service, Alaska and Virgin America will provide Portland residents access to 130 daily nonstop flights to 58 destinations, more than any other carrier serving Portland International Airport.

This added service provides Rose City flyers greater access to two New York metropolitan area airports – JFK and Newark. JFK is the country's busiest international gateway, and is a prime jumping off point for customers traveling to Europe and beyond on Alaska Global Partners including British Airways, Icelandair and Condor. Members of the Alaska Mileage Plan can earn and redeem miles when flying on one of Alaska's global airline partners to over 900 destinations around the globe.

With the new service to Detroit, Alaska Airlines will offer the only daily, year-round nonstop service from Portland to the Motor City, home to auto industry giants such as General Motors and Ford Motor Company. Guests will now have access to low fare options, with the reliability and award-winning customer service they have come to expect from their go-to airline on the West Coast.

The new Los Angeles-Philadelphia flight builds on the 27 new markets the combined airline has added from California, since merging with Virgin America in December. Virgin America previously served this market from April 2012 to October 2014.

Schedule of new service:

Start Date
City pair
Departs
Arrives
Aircraft
Frequency

Aug 30
Portland-Detroit
10:30 p.m.
5:30 a.m.
B737
Daily

Aug 31
Detroit-Portland
7 a.m.
8:45 a.m.
B737
Daily

Sep 1
Los Angeles-Philadelphia
8:45 p.m.
5 a.m.
A320 family
Daily

Sep 2
Philadelphia-Los Angeles
6:30 a.m.
9:26 a.m.
A320 family
Daily

Nov 6
Portland-New York (JFK)
11:05 p.m.
7:30 a.m.
B737
Daily
Nov 7
New York (JFK)-Portland
9:30 a.m.
12:55 p.m.
B737
Daily

Flight times based on local time zones.

To purchase tickets, visit alaskaair.com to find great savings, or call 1-800-ALASKAAIR (800-252-7522 for Hearing & Speech Impaired (TTY): Dial 711 for Relay Services). To purchase tickets between Los Angeles and Philadelphia on Virgin America, visit virginamerica.com or call 1-877-FLY-VIRGIN (877-359-8474).

eponymous_coward

Adding PDX or another CA city (SJC and/or SAN) makes more sense than SEA...

nas6034

As a hub you should have optimal connections for all your passengers otherwise why bother? Now with the intro of the JFK-PDX flight it arrives 40mins after the OGG flight leaves. They can either move up the JFK time slot or make the OGG flight 1hr later. Now that would be optimal connecting time. You can't start adding east coast flights to your hub (generally speaking) and think only end point. You need to think in terms of connecting passengers.

eponymous_coward

Because SEA generates plenty of O/D traffic that wants to go to Hawaii and the East Coast, and thus they time flights for them and efficient operation for O/D, not for connecting passengers?

Sure, but AS really hasn't been growing SEA or PDX into a role as an East Coast scissors hub for Hawaii (I don't really think it's a market that interests them compared to adding nonstops all over the West Coast). Note that instead of funneling pax ANC/SJC-SEA-HNL they actually FLY ANC/SJC-HNL nonstop. They're not going to turn down people's money if they want to fly NYC-HNL on AS, but AS's network is a lot more point-to-point and O/D than "let's funnel everyone in the universe into our megahub and connect them" like DL does at ATL.

AS is just not that into you as an East Coast based traveler to Hawaii, as an airline based on the West Coast and primarily focused on doing point-to-point service for those West Coast markets. Connecting East Coast travel to Hawaii is interesting but way down on the list compared to serving their core markets. SEA is different from a midcon hub (and I might note that AA/DL/UA have to fill much larger planes from those midcon hubs, which is why they will time their flights differently to take East Coast passengers).

I would think that SEA/PDX's "hub" traffic for AS is mostly coming in on QX shortish regional flights or from Alaska. Not from the East Coast.

WrightHI

Again, whether or not they care about JFK-HNL, they ought to care some about HNL-JFK (and HNL-wherever). They're positioned to take another bite out of UA if they want to, and while HI isn't a huge market, it isn't tiny, and people here fly a lot. I don't think anyone is suggesting that they shouldn't be focusing on serving SEA and PDX O/D and using aircraft efficiently, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't also be looking at whether schedule tweaks would pick up enough connecting traffic to be worthwhile.

eponymous_coward

Sure, but when you're serving ANC/SEA/PDX/SMF/SFO/OAK/SJC/LAX/SAN-Hawaii, there's a fair number of moving parts involved (including JFK gates, JFK slots, Hawaii gates, oh, and SEA is getting very crowded these days), and you obviously optimize for point-to-point/O&D, not "hey, let's optimize for those people who would rather connect East Coast-SEA-Hawaii on us than do a nonstop on someone else".

AS has just never been interested using SEA as a nationwide connecting hub the way the Big Three use places like DEN, ATL, CLT, PHX, ORD. The geography of SEA for connections is marginal save for a few exceptions (Hawaii, Alaska) and historically O/D traffic is preferred to connecting traffic in terms of yielding better (US's yields tended towards the low end of the market because a lot of their PHX/CLT traffic was connecting). The leisure demand for East Coast-Hawaii is probably also affected by how long the trips are (longer than Europe, and the Caribbean is WAY closer), which only gets worse on a one-stop in SEA.

Could they do better? Maybe. But I'm afraid my history of posting on FT doesn't really qualify me for an airline revenue management or route planning executive position. I tend to think that an airline that does better than nearly anyone else in turning a profit over the past decade has probably got their niches figured out pretty well.

Fanjet

They can utilize the VX newtork to travel between JFK and HNL/OGG. And it would probably be wiser to add an additional Hawaiian destination (LIH/KOA) from LAX and/or SFO, than to add an additonal JFK-SEA frequency.

As for the new LAX-PHL service. Not a surprise given how AS can no longer put their code on those AA hub-to-hub flights.

PWMTrav

I live on the east coast and do the reverse. I don't mind leaving in the afternoon, but the evening makes arrival night a bit more difficult. However, I really like the 8-10am departure window heading back east, and AS does a lot of that at least from the 3 cities serving BOS.

I'd love for the BOS-SAN departure to be a little earlier, but I get that they're turning the same plane, so that'd be impossible. Works well enough for me. If I really need that extra day out west. I wont lie, I will miss being able to book DL out, AS back, and crediting all of that to the same place, while having morning flights both ways.

SJC ORD LDR

It would be difficult to create a hub at JFK with just transcon flights. You aren't going to fly SEA-JFK-PDX.

rustykettel

I wish.

Fanjet

This. I think some people don't understand what the concept of a hub is. As in being a transit point between two stations.

beyondhere

I know it's moot, but BNA is technically taken by Southwest as Southwest is very large there, and is quite defensive of the station.

beckoa

Hmm... I might need to do that @:-)

Enroute to Hawaii of course

John Wang

It seems DAL rather than JFK will be the target. It is still far away from a formal HUB or even focus city but seems on the track. Of course AS needs to get more slots first... Highly doubt NW will give up any slots in favor of AS, especially NW does not need any DFW slots for exchange. AS is expanding in east coast (mid west?) and is a good news for everyone in SEA. At least AS does not beat customers like UA...