Chugach

Some highlights:

SEA-ANC 21x daily
PDX-ANC 3x daily
SFO-ANC 1x daily
LAX-ANC 2x daily
DEN-ANC 1x daily
ORD-ANC 1x daily (surprised this didn't go 2x daily for the summer)
YVR-ANC 1x daily
HNL-ANC 2x weekly

SEA-FAI 4x daily
ANC-FAI 9x daily (also heard from an Era ticket agent that Era Aviation's ANC-FAI route will go to 8x daily in the summer)

SEA-JNU 7x daily
ANC-JNU 5x daily

SEA-KTN 5x daily

Eastbay1K

Are there any lowlights (other than the OAK/SNA elimination)?

Chugach

I only looked at the (state of) Alaska routes. Pretty much the only complaint I would have is I wish they'd take one or two of the 21 daily SEA-ANC flights and switch them to PDX-ANC.

Really, how hard would it be to have 19x SEA-ANC and 5x PDX-ANC? The Portland-Anchorage market is there, especially in the summer, and PDX is a much more pleasant connecting point than SEA.

While we're on the topic of summer schedules, here's what it looks like so far for some of the other carriers coming into Alaska over the summer:

Continental:
ANC-SEA 2x daily, 738/753
ANC-IAH 3x daily, 738/753 (two nonstop, one direct via SEA)

Delta:
ANC-SLC 2x daily, 752
ANC-CVG 1x daily, 752
ANC-ATL 1x daily, 763

FAI-SLC 1x daily, 738

Northwest:
MSP-ANC 4x daily, 752
DTW-ANC 1x daily, 752

MSP-FAI 2x daily, 752

American:
DFW-ANC 1x daily

United:
DEN-ANC 1x daily, A319
SFO-ANC 1x daily, 752
ORD-ANC 2x daily, 752

US Airways:
PHX-ANC 1x daily, A319
LAS-ANC 1x daily, A319

Frontier:
DEN-ANC 1x daily, A319

Sun Country:
MSP-ANC 1x daily, 738

Air Canada:
YVR-ANC 1x daily, E90

Condor:
FRA-ANC 3x weekly, 763, via Whitehorse
FRA-FAI 1x weekly, 763, via Whitehorse

getonline33

Wow! I thought 21x ANC>SEA was a typo. It led me to wonder. Is there any other airline in the USA that offers so many daily domestic flights between single city pair of 3.5 hours or longer? 21 flights is almost a shuttle schedule! Pretty amazing demand!

Chugach

Go to alaskaair.com and look at the SEA-ANC schedule; they've done it so that almost all of their departures are on the top of the hour, every hour. In addition, they've re-numbered the flight numbers so that they are all in order; I.E. the first departure of the day, at 6:00 AM, is flight 81, 7:00 AM is flight 83, 8:00 AM is flight 85, and so on, for the entire day. I don't know if AS is going for the shuttle angle with that schedule, but I imagine it will make life easier for their ops department if a flight is cancelled. Like they say with PDX-SEA, if you miss one flight, you're a little early for the next.

I remember a USA Today article a couple of years ago about business travel noting that SEA-ANC has the most frequency of any mid-range market in the country.

Also, the PDX-SEA shuttle on QX had the most flights per day by one carrier of any market in the country.

prismwiz

JFK-LHR on BA certainly offers more seats. Maybe B6 on JFK-FLL is more than 21 during the winter, especially if you add in JFK/LGA/EWR/HPN/SWF-MIA/PBI

ANC

I agree....plus I like Capers Cafe

beaver

Interesting.. They did much the same for the SEA-FAI and FAI-ANC markets.

mcrt

What is even more amazing to me is that it is the middle of January and for tomorrow there are only five of those directs that have seats for sale. The rest are sold out.

ANC

yeah no kidding. I just did a price quote on ANC-SEA yesterday for mid march as a matter of fact and some of the flights seat maps are 3/4 of the way full already

jackal

Wow. Looks like it's going to be a good season for those of us in the tourism industry!

(This explains why my tickets to the SEA-DO were so &@$% expensive!)

FCYTravis

I'm making my one-way trip to college in FAI next Tuesday and the map is just about full-boat for the SEA-ANC leg... there's a few seats open in the MVP section, but not many.

jackal

Darn, it's going to warm up to -15 to -20 on Tuesday night! It's -36 there now with lows of -45 predicted tonight. No offense, but I was going to wish you some true cold weather! (No, I was really trying to do it to be nice to you--to let you decide within the first week, before tuition becomes nonrefundable, if you really wanted to follow through with this...)

Chugach

You Anchorage people don't know what cold is. I for one applaud FCYTravis for making the correct decision in his Alaskan educational career.

Go 'Nooks.

channa

Remember that AS is constrained by equipment type -- all 737 variants and MD80's.

Other airlines that can add 757s or widebodies can have more seats with fewer flights, which is partly the reason this route has so much frequency.

Not saying it's insignificant, 21 x 737/MD80 is certainly significant, but if AS had 757s, they could probably whack close to half of these and keep the same number of seats.