AS Ends SFO-SAN
 

The route is not bookable on www.alaskaair.com from the fall.

This decision is probably preemptive, reacting to the probable entry of WN and Virgin America on the route.

That was quick.

Unfortunetly not enough Bay area converts.

So much for AS protecting WC turf. I guess SFO-SAN was not turf worth protecting though.

The fares have been very low, and there have even been empty seats in F !

Probably smart for AS to put those planes on more lucrative routings with WN and Virgin America almost being a certainty on the SFO-SAN route.

I don't know if WN or Virgin factor into it (they might...I just don't know) but I do know that our summer schedule includes 20 nonstop r/t's between ANC and SEA daily. I guess those aircraft have to come from somewhere!:D

I was talking to some employees sitting in F on a recent SFO-SAN trip (that tells you how empty F was), and the consensus was that AS had not done enough to promote the new SFO-SAN service. Many regular AS passengers they talked to did not even know AS flew this route. I personally can't remember seeing one advertisement, billboard, or even much mention of it on the AS website except right at the very beginning.

Of the SFO-SAN flights I've taken, several have been pretty much full, including last Fri eve. Certain others were quite empty, but empirically, it would appear loads have been improving this spring. 100% upgrade success of course. I'm kind of surprised AS isn't downgrading this route to Horizon CRJs.

Other question is, will AS bring back the SAN-YVR flight non-stop? SAN-YVR has been running as a one-stop through SFO since the new service began end of October. So, basically an 11 month run, since it is not bookable after Sept 30.

20 non-stops/day for ANC-SEA is standard for summer. Last year they had 19 according to the BTS database. Also, SFO-SAN is bookable through Sept 30. That said, I really hope AS has created a workable summer schedule. AS has been scheduling longer turn times over the past 9 months or so, and I hope this continues into the summer, because AS has a history of operational troubles during the summer months, and things could get messy depending on how the pilot negotiations go...

I think its was more of preemptive move to START the market before WN and Virgin America are up and running. But I think the traffic never materialized -- there were constant $34 ow available. Plus I never saw any promotion of it in the Bay Area.

I am sad to see this Alaska option go away -- but SFO flyers have been addicted to SFOSAN on United since WN left SFO in 2001.

I actually think that most of the SFO-SAN traffic shifted to OAK/SJC-SAN when WN left SFO in 2001. AS could have reclaimed some of that traffic had it actually promoted this route as an alternative to flying from OAK.

Yeah. That was a real quick because AS has been discontinues its 4x daily roundtrip from SFO-SAN. I'm sure WN will entry into SFO-SAN will take care of them.

It can be argued that more promotion and advertising could have been done, but a lot was, radio and newspaper. We got the leisure, but the business stayed on OA. Not a good sign. Given AS limited pressence in the Bay Area, the cost of doing more advertising would have been enormous. Its a very expensive ad market with a lot of noise from VA....people are distracted.

A return to SAN-YVR is highly unlikely. Focus is on defending and building the core franchise, that being the PNW markets. I wouldn't rule out QX doing more California in the future....stay tuned.

Wonder what they're gonna do with us. We're booked in Nov. on a SFO-SAN RT on a cheap revenue ticket.

Will they route us thru PDX/SEA or put us on UA.

Right now the flights are still loaded, but zeroed out, so their intention is pretty clear.

For me it was competing against AA SAN-SJC; unfortunately they didn't have an early enough flight to make it work as a day trip, so I have only used it if I had to be in the office by 8am, and so had to fly up the night before.

*A flyers will take UA SFO-SAN; OW will probably take AA SJC-SAN. And a bizarre number of people I know favor southwest. AS doesn't have enough of a core customer base at either end to make it work; but it was a nice change from the CRJ while it lasted....:)