eponymous_coward

Ranking in combined statistical areas or metropolitan statistical area:

SNA/LAX: 2nd
SJC/SFO: 5th
PHX: 11th
PDX: 25th
LAS: 28th
GEG: 99th

A good reason for PDX being on the list is there may be some logic if you're north of Everett to go PAE-PDX-XXX or XXX-PDX-PAE instead of driving a couple of hours on I-5 (and the traffic is rapidly getting to a point where it's garbage even on weekends). LAS is on the list to scare G4 or NK away (I am still shocked they didn't try for some service, but hey).

GEG is way too small a catchment area compared to those other ones, and PAE is not meant to steal connecting traffic away from SEA, the destinations AS picked are very obviously meant to represent AS's O/D traffic from SEA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattl...p_destinations

AS is serving five of the top 10 destinations out of SEA nonstop out of PAE (SNA being the only one that's not, but it's also almost certainly 100% nonstop except for maybe some AS Mexico flights).

AS doesn't really care if they move O/D traffic from SEA to PAE (if anything it helps when SEA is such a dumpster fire at the moment), but I would bet a chunk of their GEG traffic connects. They probably don't want to have a bunch of their GEG-SEA nonstop traffic suddenly go to PAE and then have weaker GEG-SEA traffic.

CZBB

Size of a market doesn't mean much when it comes to business of a route pair. New York is the largest metro area in the USA, and not in the top 10 for air traffic from SEA

GEG-SEA is 549k/yr, which is just below the #10 market; and I'd guess there's a fair chunk of O/D market; but they have access to the numbers as to whether it's connecting or not. it's something like 10-11x/day isn't it?

It strikes me their service is high on the leisure market (PHX, SNA, LAS), and not going after the higher $ business market (potentially DFW, ORD and potentially GEG day-trips). If they're going leisure, I'd expect a PSP flight as well.

eponymous_coward

I think they are trying to keep NK and G4 from trying to go after leisure markets by making sure they aren't allowed to get access to them uncontested if they start it up at a later point (or if they HAD entered PAE); you've seen how AS works like that out of BLI where they have hustled G4 out of markets by playing hardball. They seem to have done that with WN too (who wanted to fly PAE-LAS).

I don't think ORD/DFW work well from PAE for AS for a couple of reasons:

• AS at PAE is all P2P instead of connecting traffic (save for some PAE-PDX traffic); a lot of SEA traffic to and from DFW and ORD is on on airlines that can connect you beyond (UA/AA) that own a hub there. As such the demand for an ORD/DFW flight out of PAE is lower for AS than it would be for AA/UA. Note that even UA isn't flying ORD-PAE (though DEN-PAE is probably just as good; shorter stage length and excellent connectivity into the UA network going east, plus probably reasonable demand for DEN by itself).
• They aren't as big O/D for AS as, say, LAS or SFO (5x daily ORD and 4x daily DFW vs. 10x daily LAS or 13x SFO). What I see AS doing is taking markets they are top dog in on frequency/capacity and saying they are willing to risk splitting them between SEA and PAE by doing some E75s and seeing what shakes out. Fairly low risk to add a little capacity there. They don't even come close to being top dog on SEA-ORD/DFW.

Toshbaf

With AS' schedule, there already is restricted gate space for UA. There are times that both gates are used, particularly in the early morning and late evening. There is even a squeeze when no gates are available for an Alaska/Horizon flight.

Example:
-Gate 1 arrival from PHX 1905 - 1945 SAN departure
-Gate 1 arrival from SLC 1955 - 2105 PDX departure (previous flight at Gate 1 leaves only 10 min before - tight)
-Gate 2 arrival from SFO 2025 - gets towed to apron 2055, 30 minutes later
*No gate for arrival from SNA 2040 - gets towed to apron 2110, 30 minutes later
-Gate 1 or 2 (say Gate 1) arrival from PDX 2235 - gets towed to apron 2305, 30 minutes later
-Gate 1 or 2 (say Gate 2) arrival from LAX 2250 - gets towed to apron 2320, 30 minutes later or stays overnight
-Gate 1 arrival from LAS 2325 - gets towed to apron or stays overnight

I would expect eventually that many of the E175 flights will be replaced with 737-900ER flights.

CZBB

Exactly. There's a lot of P2P PDX-SEA, and I don't see why the slightly longer GEG-SEA wouldn't be a lot of P2P as well. There are a lot of day-trips to/from Spokane, I'm guessing one or two of the SEA departures running out of PAE would work. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the gates at PAE becomes optional 1A/1B for Q400s, and PAE-PDX & PAE-GEG to become Q400s.

WebTraveler

Curious how many former Seattle flyers will take these new flights and connect through PDX for longer haul flights. Right now I am not clear that the new Paine field flights connect well, so I sense a re-timing of PDX flights will need to happen to make this more possible.

sdsearch

Now for the people who would fly in the other direction;

That website makes no mention of rental cars. So has no signed up yet to provide rental cars there?

WebTraveler

https://www.painefield.com/businessd...ii.aspx?bid=24 Avis is listed on the legacy airport site.

IStream

Given that Southwest gave up a PAE-OAK slot and Alaska has conspicuously not taken it up, it doesn't seem like a stretch that it was a condition of the deal. PAE's lower fees could've given AS a way to compete more effectively against Southwest. With their spring 2019 service degradation to OAK, it seems like AS has thrown in the towel.

Toshbaf

It's possible but with only 18 flights and 2 gates in the terminal, AS will certainly be looking at the highest yield flights. The demand is probably much more than 18 flights. I wouldn't rule out eventually one ORD or IAD flight. JFK might be a choice if there's a desire not to compete directly with UA at IAD or ORD. It's always possible that LAX might be downgraded from 4 flights to 3, but using 737-900/900ER. So many possibilities.

CZBB

I really don't think AS care that much about OAK, their primary airports of focus in the Bay Area are SFO and SJC; where as WN's primary airport is OAK. That's just the way it is; kind of like United not serving JFK because they have EWR

dmodemd

Parking info in this review by TPG of the new terminal:
https://thepointsguy.com/news/inside...nger-terminal/
Parking will cost $40/day for valet, while premium self-parking will be $30/day and $20/day for economy self-parking.

beckoa

Well, that seems ridiculous IMO.

dmodemd

Heh...article seems to say their justification is "well, it is cheaper than Seatac!"
Hopefully some nearby off-airport parking pops up...

PDXPremier

I agree...very overpriced.