Alaska Airlines expands to Toronto but drops key Austin route

Alaska Airlines is making a few changes to its route map in the coming months, including the addition of one route to Canada and the subtraction of another between two major tech hubs.

Starting later this spring, the Seattle-based carrier will add a new Canadian city — and the country's busiest airport — to its route map. On May 16, Alaska will begin daily nonstop flights between its Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) base and Toronto Pearson Airport (YYZ).

New Seattle-to-Toronto route

Toronto will be the sixth Canadian city served by Alaska. The airline currently flies to Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, as well as Kelowna, Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.

With the addition of Toronto, here's what Alaska's route map between the U.S. and Canada will look like as of June, as displayed by aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Alaska will fly its Seattle-to-Toronto route with its Boeing 737-900 aircraft, the most common aircraft in its fleet.

The airline cited Toronto's prominence as a leisure and business destination in announcing the news.

It's worth noting that the carrier has strengthened its ties to Canada in recent months, especially when considering its new partnership with Porter Airlines, a smaller Canadian carrier.

By the end of this month, Porter will have two of its own routes between Toronto and key West Coast operating bases for Alaska. These will help feed into a new interline agreement between the two airlines — allowing customers to book certain itineraries featuring seamless connections between Alaska and Porter. Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan members can also earn miles on certain Porter flights as part of the tie-up.

Here's how the schedule looks for the new route that begins May 16:

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• SEA-YYZ: Depart at 7 a.m. PDT and arrive at 2:40 p.m. EDT
• YYZ-SEA: Depart at 3:40 p.m. PDT and arrive at 5:55 p.m. PDT

Austin-to-San Jose, California, route ends

In announcing the new route, Alaska also filed plans this weekend to eliminate another.

As of March 7, the carrier will eliminate its route between Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC) and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS).

The move is part of a decision by the airline to focus its Austin flying from the Bay Area out of San Francisco International Airport (SFO), a spokesperson told TPG.

This route elimination comes as Austin has seen some positive and negative movement with routes in recent months, including Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines scaling back operations and Delta Air Lines adding Austin capacity.

In the second quarter of this year, Austin is scheduled for a slight dip in the number of departing flights compared to last year, according to data from Cirium. However, airlines will still offer slightly more seats versus that same period in 2023.

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